Vascular Plants = Winning!: Crash Course Biology #137

Hank introduces us to one of the most diverse and important families in the tree of life – the vascular plants. These plants have found tremendous success and their secret is also their defining trait: conductive tissues that can take food and water from one part of a plant to another part. Though it sounds simple, the ability to move nutrients and water from one part of an organism to another was an evolutionary breakthrough for vascular plants, allowing them to grow exponentially larger, store food for lean times, and develop features that allowed them to spread farther and faster. Plants dominated the earth long before animals even showed up, and even today hold world records for the largest, most massive, and oldest organisms on the planet.

References
http://www.uic.edu/classes/bios/bios100/lecturesf04am/lect17.htm
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700071982/Central-Utahs-Pando-worlds-largest-living-thing-is-threatened-scientists-say.html?pg=all
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/200000-year-old-patch-seagrass-worlds-oldest-living-organism