From the publisher, Smithsonian Institution Press: "Illustrated with line drawings and complete with appendices detailing the morphology of early fossil plants and their living relatives, The Origin and Early Diversification of Land Plants discusses the implications of its phylogenetic conclusions for understanding the evolution of land plant structure, life cycles, the appearance of groups in the fossil record, biogeographic patterns, and related geological events." Kenrick and Crane won the Henry Allan Gleason Award, conferred annually by the New York Botanical Garden for a recent outstanding publication in plant taxonomy, plant ecology, or plant geography, in 1997.