Land plants make up around 80 of Earths biomass.The pioneering plants were small and moss-like, and they had to overcome two big challenges to survive on land avoiding drying out, and surviving the Suns harsh ultraviolet light.In rock samples from Canning Basin in the north of Western Australia, we have discovered 480 million-year-old fossilised spores from early land plants alongside spores from ancestral water-dwelling algae.