Plants in the shadows
“Paleoart, long considered peripheral to paleoscience, has become a powerful medium for visualizing extinct life and landscapes. Yet its historical trajectory has been dominated by zoocentric traditions, where plants are relegated to vague backdrops despite their central role in Earth system dynamics. This review examines the epistemological and cultural consequences of such plant blindness, situating paleoart at the intersection of paleontology, paleoecology, and landscape studies. We provide a critical historical synthesis, tracing the representation of vegetation from nineteenth-century phytocentric pioneers to the consolidation of animal-centered canons and the persistence of clichés that obscure paleobotanical data. Drawing on case studies across the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, we show how integrating fossil pollen and spores, macrofossils, taphonomic and multiproxy records—transforms paleoart into a form of visual scientific modeling that reveals ecological interactions, climatic drivers, and biogeographic patterns invisible in faunal reconstructions alone. Beyond historiography, we evaluate methodological frameworks for translating fragmentary data into coherent visual ecosystems, emphasizing the role of taphonomy, landscape reconstruction, and explicit protocols of inference. Particular attention is given to recent botanical paleoart that has redefined the visual vocabulary of deep time, replacing repetitive templates (“monkey puzzles and parking lots”) with floristically accurate reconstructions anchored in paleobotanical evidence. Finally, we highlight the Quaternary record, where paleoart remains less developed despite the abundance of high-resolution palynological, anthracological, and macrofossil archives. Here we present original reconstructions from the Iberian Peninsula that illustrate how glacial refugia, ecological mosaics, and vegetation dynamics can be made visible through art. These examples demonstrate that paleoart, when botanically informed, is not ancillary illustration but a methodological extension of paleoecology.” …. in Earth Science Reviews