Where do plants come from?

We found that people and animals come from their parents. But people and animals can’t produce their own food and rely on plants and animals for their nutrition. Plants are solar-powered food factories and are the basis of the food chain. They make their own food through photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is one of the most important chemical reactions on earth as it also produces oxygen which is essential for all air-breathing life. So where do plants come from?

Plants reproduce using two main methods, sexual reproduction (which uses flowers and seeds) and vegetative reproduction (which uses parts like stems, roots, or leaves). In sexual reproduction there are two parents and in vegetative reproduction there is one parent.

Like humans and animals, plants come from their parents (sexual reproduction) or they come from their parent (vegetative reproduction). They inherit their genetic makeup from their parents or parent. Can this pattern go on forever into the past? No, because according to science and the Bible, the universe had a beginning. Do you know how many generations there have been since the beginning of plants?

How many generations?

The generation length of a plant is the average age of parents producing the next generation. The range of a generation’s length in plants spans from a few weeks for ephemals to several decades for long-lived trees. For example:

1 month – ephemerals
6 months – annuals
2 years – biannuals
2-10 years – herbs
3 years – grasses
20-50 years – forest trees
70-80 years – slow-growing trees
100-500 years – long-living trees

Genealogists and historians traditionally use 25 years as a standard length for a single generation for humans. This gave a total of about 180 generations of humanity on earth, which is an approximate number. This calculation used biblical data indicating that the length of a human generation was longer before the flood in Noah’s time (see Appendix).

If we assume that the length of a plant generation was longer before the flood by the same ratio as for people, then a forest tree with a generation length of 25 years would have had about 180 generations on earth. As a long-living tree’s generation length of 300 years is 12 times greater than for humans, they would have about 15 generations on earth. As the ephemeral’s generation length is 0.33% that of humans, they would have about 59,000 generations on earth. So, most plants (except for slow-growing trees) have more generations on earth than is the case for humans.

Where did plants come from?

God made the original plants (Gen. 1:11-12; 2:8-9), which were perfect – they were “good” (Gen. 1:12). Like Adam and Eve and the original animals, as they were commanded to reproduce, they were created mature and didn’t go through the germination, seedling and juvenile stages of life. Instead, they were instant adults! This was also necessary to provide fruit for the animals and Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:29-30).

All of the plants were made “according to their kinds” (Gen. 1:11-12). This means that from the beginning there were many different kinds of plants, which also means that one kind of plant didn’t evolve into another kind of plant. Each of these kinds was created with a vast amount of genetic information. There was enough variety in the information in the original plants so their descendants could adapt to a wide variety of environments. So each kind was able to produce a range of variations – for example, there are over 20,000 types of daisies, and over 10,000 types of roses.

The original plants were given the original genetic information which has been passed through many generations to help create all the other plants. This genetic information has been used for thousands of years to create plants across the earth.

What have been the main events across the many generations of plants?

Significant events in the history of plants

Adam and Eve’s disobedience destroyed the harmony between God and people. It also had an impact on the rest of God’s creation – the harmony between people and creation was destroyed. The ground was cursed, it took hard work to harvest food, and plant growth was less productive (Gen. 3:17-18). Thorns, prickles and spines are degenerative—mutant leaves or parts of leaves that didn’t unfold properly; leaf bases that have failed to grow into leaves or are left over when leaves fall off or failed branch development. The Earth became imperfect, and was no longer like the original paradise. Paul personified this by saying that creation is suffering pain like a mother in childbirth who looks forward to the day when it will be released from death and decay (Rom. 8:19-22).

God’s judgment of the global flood (at about 2350BC) caused the earth to be inundated for about 6 months. The judgement was on humanity and land-based animals shared a similar fate. Plants would have suffered collateral damage. Torn-up vegetation would have formed large floating rafts that could have preserved some seeds and plants. When the rafts were buried under other fossil-bearing sediments, they were converted into coal by the temperatures and pressures at these depths, aided by the presence of water and clay.

The flood was a genetic bottle-neck, which was like a new creation. And some kinds of plants went extinct because they couldn’t survive after the flood.

Conclusion

Every plant comes from their parents (or parent). But when that is traced back in history, plants come from God – He designed and created them thousands of years ago. Consequently, plants didn’t come from other plants by the process of biological evolution.

Appendix: Longer generations

According to the Masoretic text, the typical human generation was about 66 (1656/10) years from Adam to the flood and about 32 (290/9) years from the flood to Abraham (Safarti, 2023). This indicates that before the flood a generation was 2.6 (66/25) times greater than today.

Written, October 2026

Also see: Where do people come from?
Where do animals come from?