Chapter 5Divine Providence VEGETATIONAnd God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth:" and it was so And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and morning were the third day Genesis 1:11-13 On this third day of creation, after the Lord brought forth the land from the sea, He carpeted the rolling hills and plains with grasslands, grains, trees, and fruit trees. It is to be assumed that all the undersea vegetation was created at this time as well. Before God created animals, he provided food for their consumption! From the beginning God had demonstrated his care and provision for His creation! Neither the sun nor stars have been created yet. The plant-life receives its light for photosynthesis from the blanket of light created on the second day. The heavenly food chain is being created. First the water, light, then soil to feed the vegetation. Now He creates the vegetation to feed the animal life that will come next [11]. And for man, the vegetation will also provide material for clothing and shelter. Today we have three main types of grasslands on Earth: prairie lands, tropical savannas, and arctic tundras. The grassland that existed under the temperate temperatures of the canopy would have been a combination and cross of prairies and savannas. The rolling and treeless plains that are often marshy found in the Arctic and Siberia wouldn't exist at this time because the polar caps don't appear until after the Flood (although the vegetation existed, I mean as grouped in the topographical sense). Prairies are treeless grasslands found in America with very rich soil that require moderate temperatures. Savannas are found in the hot tropics and are grasslands covered with low vegetation of spiny shrubs and trees. The canopy may have had warmer temperatures at the equator and the tropical zones between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. But it would not have been the hot and muggy weather we know of today. There would have been humidity, of course, since the land was watered by a mist and the greenhouse effect of the canopy would keep the moisture in the air. Moderate humidity is good. Dry air as from a desert area damages tissue. But oppressive humidity is unbearable because of the heat. The mild temperatures under the canopy would make the humidity healthful, not oppressive. Perhaps the grass that was on the canopied Earth was like prairie grass. Since the only source of watering came from mists upon the ground and rivers sprung from underground water (Gen. 2:6), then it is probable that the mist watered the grasslands, while the trees and forests grew along and near the rivers and lakes. Because of the mist, the plants probably had a shallow root system. The Redwood Forests along the northern California coasts is an example. The ocean air provides cool weather and a mist on the shoreline. The redwood trees grow to incredible heights, yet have an extremely shallow root system that grow wide instead of deep. Studies have shown that plants grown hydroponically (that is, in water with nutrients added) flourish better than plants in soil with deep roots. 
The fruit trees and green herbs (grains) were for man and the animals to eat (Gen. 1:29). Rice, wheat, and corn were probably only a few grains that survived, of the many that couldn't, in the postdiluvian weather. There were probably many more herbs of medicinal value, than today, which would be another factor in the longevity of the antediluvians. When Jesus returns to set up his kingdom on Earth, the book of Revelations tells us that "the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:2) will be restored to the Earth. The health and medicinal value of this tree probably had similar counterparts in the early Earth. Because of the hyper baric pressure of the canopy, the plant life was larger than what we have today. Dennis Lindsey reports: "Fossils show us that the Earth was once covered with lush vegetation. Near Cairo, Egypt, broadleaf forests are entombed and petrified... Fruit trees 90 feet tall - with ripe fruit and green leaves still on their branches - have been found in the frozen terrain of the New Siberian Islands, situated north of the Soviet Union and within the Arctic Circle. The remains of tropical forests, gigantic fruit trees.. .have been discovered scattered throughout these islands. Palm tree fossils have been unearthed in NW Canada and in Alaska. Large fossilized leaves of tropical plants were found 250 miles from the South Pole. A petrified forest was discovered 100 miles from the South Pole...The rocks reveal fossilized trees such as the oak, myrtle, laurel, walnut, palm, banana, magnolia, beech, grapevine, sequoia, and others were in abundance around the world - even in polar regions and Siberia. Redwood forests buried under massive ice deposits have been unearthed at the south polar region" [12] . 
Not only did tropical vegetation cover the whole Earth, but as the report indicates, they were often gigantic in size! (Remember, though, these plants had 1500 years of growth before the Flood.) This makes sense knowing that God created Dinosaurs of great girth, but He also created many animals of great size. This kind of lush vegetation and hyper baric pressure for intense oxygen supply would be needed to feed and sustain all these large animals. And, of course, the reverse would be true. Large animals feeding on these large plants would be needed to control their growth. Otherwise, the whole Earth would become a dense jungle unfit for human habitation. He further reports that shrubs grew 100 feet high, moss grew 2-3 feet high, horsetail reeds 50 feet high, and asparagus reached 40 feet high! [13] |