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Phylogeny

The earliest conifers appear in the fossil record during the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), over 300 million years ago. Conifers are thought to be most closely related to the Cordaitales, a group of extinct Carboniferous-Permian trees and clambering plants whose reproductive structures had some similarities to those of conifers. The most primitive conifers belong to the paraphyletic assemblage of " walchian conifers ", which were small trees, and probably originated in dry upland habitats. The range of conifers expanded during the Early Permian (Cisuralian) to lowlands due to increasing aridity. Walchian conifers were gradually replaced by more advanced voltzialean or "transition" conifers. Conifers were largely unaffected by the Permian–Triassic extinction event, and were dominant land plants of the Mesozoic era. Modern groups of conifers emerged from the Voltziales during the Late Permian through Jurassic. Conifers underwent a major decline in the Late Cretaceous corresponding to the explosive adaptive radiation of flowering plants.