Misha Glenny

speaker

1,430 appearances 22 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard yesterday

Misha Glenny’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 22 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 6.

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In Our Time · The Evolution of Trees · 2 Jul 2026 podcast

When they first appeared, they reshaped our ecosystems, altered the atmosphere and created entirely new environments on land.

Well, with me to discuss the evolution of trees are Jenny McIlwain, the 1711 Chair of Botany at Trinity College Dublin and Director of Trinity Botanic Gardens...

Christopher Berry, Senior Lecturer in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff University.

And Bill Baker, Senior Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew.

Welcome to In Our Time.

And Jenny, let me start with you.

I think like most of the listeners, I can say that I recognise a tree when I see one.

But what is a tree?

What do we mean by die back exactly?

Yes, tell us, what is wood exactly?

And can you have trees without wood?

And before trees came along, what was happening with plants on Earth?

So if they're rootless, that means they're sort of like mosses or something like that.

Okay, so Chris Berry, when did the first trees then arrive, presumably out of this vegetation, and what did they look like?

Just the definition of those two words.

So, Jenny, not a tree?

OK, so we know about this because of the fossil record.

Sticking with that, Chris, what do those fossil records tell us about the first forests?

And you've been to the four major sites of the earliest fossilised trees that we know.

Where are the other two?

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