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Psilophyton is a genus of extinct vascular plants. Described in 1859, it was one of the first fossil plants to be found which was of Devonian age (about 420 to 360 million years ago ). Specimens have been found in northern Maine , USA; Gaspé Bay , Quebec and New Brunswick , Canada; the Czech Republic ; and Yunnan , China.
The class was created in 1917 by Kidston and Lang for fossils found in the Rhynie Chert Bed. [4] Three genera were initially included, Rhynia, Horneophyton and Psilophyton. All lacked leaves and true roots, consisting only of branched stems; however they were considered to contain vascular tissue. [1] Additional fossil genera were added later.
Psilotum is a genus of fern-like vascular plants.It is one of two genera in the family Psilotaceae commonly known as whisk ferns, the other being Tmesipteris.Plants in these two genera were once thought to be descended from the earliest surviving vascular plants, but more recent phylogenies place them as basal ferns, as a sister group to Ophioglossales.
Trimerophytopsida (or Trimeropsida) is a class of early vascular plants from the Devonian, informally called trimerophytes.It contains genera such as Psilophyton.This group is probably paraphyletic, and is believed to be the ancestral group from which both the ferns and seed plants evolved.
Fossils of the Ordovician-Silurian trilobite Ampyx. †Ampyx †Annamitella – tentative report †Annamitella borealis †Apiculiretusispora †Atrypa †Atrypa reticularis †Barinophyton †Barinophyton richardsoni †Barrandeina †Barrandeina aroostookensis †Batostoma †Batostomella †Bucania – or unidentified comparable form ...
The first species of this genus (Sawdonia ornata) was described in 1859 by Sir J. William Dawson and, was originally attributed to the genus Psilophyton. He named this plant Psilophyton princeps. In 1971 Francis Hueber proposed a new genus for this species due to its "Divergent technical characters from the generic description for Psilophyton."
Plant macrofossils include leaf, needle, cone, and stem debris; and can be used to identify types of plants formerly growing in the area. Such botanical macrofossil data provide a valuable complement to pollen and faunal data that can be used to reconstruct the prehistoric terrestrial environment.
The euphyllophytes consist of two lineages, the spermatophytes or seed plants such as flowering plants (angiosperms) and gymnosperms (conifers and related groups), and the Polypodiophytes or ferns, as well as a number of extinct fossil groups.