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Dispersal, whether active or passive, plays a crucial role in biogeography by facilitating the movement of propagules away from their original location. Botanical geographical zonation, resulting from the co‐evolution of plants and their environment, has been established since the remarkable plant diversification during the Devonian Period (c. 419–359 Ma). However, a significant knowledge gap exists in understanding plant dispersal between living and fossil organisms due to the rarity of opportunities for tracing plant dispersal in geological history. In this study, we present evidence of two plant dispersal routes and verify their occurrence through the examination of geographical zonation, changes in plant diversity, and latitudinal and longitudinal gradients during the Devonian. We analyse global occurrence data from widely‐distributed and extensively‐studied Devonian plants. The two dispersal routes, namely clockwise and anticlockwise, connect the South China and Euramerica–Siberia realms. These routes clearly demonstrate inland and inter‐land dispersal models, closely linked to Devonian sea–land topography and dispersal vectors such as wind and ocean currents. Moreover, these models probably apply to all Devonian plants. Our comprehensive synthesis of plant dispersal in deep time reveals that propagule diversity and dispersal vectors have progressively increased and become more complex over time, facilitating plant colonization and diversity changes. Importantly, our study unveils the dispersal models of fossil plants, demonstrating the equivalent models observed in extant plants that have been established since the Devonian Period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fully cored CSDP-2 Well, drilled in the central uplift region of the South Yellow Sea, China, provides indispensable and very significant research opportunities to understand the evolution of life, paleoclimate, paleogeography, and tectonics during the Permian in the South Yellow Sea area of the Yangtze paleoblock. We here analyze 118 samples from 893.7 to 1798.8 m depth of the CSDP-2 borehole core and recognize three Permian palynological assemblages, Laevigatosporites minimus – Florinites florini (MF) for the Kungurian mid-lower Qixia Formation, Crucisaccites quadratoides – Limitisporites rhombicorpus (QR) for the Capitanian lower Longtan Formation and Macrotoispora media – Anticapipollis tornatilis (MT) for the Wuchiapingian upper Longtan Formation, in an ascending order. These palynological assemblages indicate a warm and semi-humid rainforest paleoenvironment and a drying tendency of the paleoclimate. The present study area belongs to the Yangtze paleoblock in paleogeography and is a part of the Cathaysia flora based on mega-plant fossil records. However, our palynological assemblages show similarities to those of both South China and North China subzones and, especially, their pollen contents with arid coniferous affinities highly similar to those in the north part of the South China subzone. The presence of conifers might suggest a more arid climate in the North China subzone had started to affect the Yellow Sea area in the Lopingian (Permian). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]