Vegetation-induced sedimentary structures (VISS) provide tangible evidence of plants mediating sediment deposition and erosion in ancient environments, because they represent primary sedimentary structures formed from direct interactions of land plants with sediment or hydrodynamics. VISS are pervasive in modern landscapes yet are often under-reported from the geological record. We review the stratigraphic distribution of VISS in the siliciclastic record, using both existing reports and several newly discovered examples, and from this provide an atlas of twelve key forms of VISS and their formative mechanisms. Examples are illustrated in a range of sedimentary and fossil contexts to aid improved identification and we highlight several instances of VISS preserved without concomitant fossil vegetation, providing expanded evolutionary records from environments where fossil preservation was unfavourable. Timescales of VISS creation are partly determined by the lifespans of trigger vegetation, and we show how VISS can thus be used to constrain depositional timespans represented at outcrop. The small spatiotemporal scale of VISS inherently renders them high-resolution records of local-scale biogeomorphic processes, and we demonstrate how they can provide small-scale windows onto larger-scale biogeomorphology. The presently known deep time history of VISS is discussed in relation to plant evolutionary events; from their first appearance in Lower Devonian strata, their expansion through to the Pennsylvanian in line with the progressive evolution of rooting, arborescence and forestation, and further into the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Particular attention is paid to our own observations from latest Pennsylvanian-Permian strata, which record a widespread shift from lycopsid-dominated 'coal swamps' to conifer-dominated drylands. Taphonomic conditions discourage plant preservation in drylands which renders an apparent scarcity of vegetation fossils. However, the extended record of VISS demonstrates that early conifers were important biogeomorphic agents following the demise of coal forest flora.