The first forests evolved during Earth's prehistoric past. Since then, all forests have developed in essentially the same way, by means of a process called succession.

Coniferous Forests of the World

The First Forests

The first forests evolved from ferns and other prehistoric plants, which, over time having adapted to the surrounding environment, grew more tree-like. Trees that preferred a warm, humid, tropical climate developed first, followed by those that gradually adapted to drier, cooler weather. Coniferous forests flourished during the Jurassic Period, about 190,000,000 years ago. Fossils (ancient remains that have turned to stone) of the Walachia tree, an ancestor of the conifers that grew over 250,000,000 years ago, show that it resembled trees found growing in the Southern Hemisphere today.

About 1,000,000 years ago, during the great Ice Ages, glaciers (slow-moving masses of ice) covered much of the planet and destroyed many of...