sentences:  The grasses, as well as many other groups, evolved new mechanisms of metabolism to survive the low and warm, dry conditions of the tropics over the last .Land plants evolved from a group of green algae, perhaps as early as 850 mya, but algae-like plants might have evolved as early as 1 billion years ago.The closest living relatives of land plants are the charophytes, specifically Charales; assuming that the habit of the Charales has changed little since the divergence of lineages, this means that the land plants evolved from a branched, filamentous alga dwelling in shallow fresh water, perhaps at the edge of seasonally desiccating pools.