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Lepidodendron
''Lepidodendron'' is an extinct genus of primitive vascular plants belonging to the family Lepidodendraceae, part of a group of Lycopodiopsida known as scale trees or arborescent lycophytes, related to Isoetes, quillworts and Lycopodiopsida, lycopsids (club mosses). They were part of the coal forest flora. They sometimes reached heights of , and the trunks were often over in diameter. They thrived during the Carboniferous Period (358.9 to 298.9 million years ago). Sometimes erroneously called "giant club mosses", the genus was actually more closely related to modern quillworts than to modern club mosses. Within the form classification system used within paleobotany, ''Lepidodendron'' is both used for the whole plant as well as specifically the stems and leaves. Etymology The name ''Lepidodendron'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:λεπίς, λεπίς ', scale, and wikt:δένδρον, δένδρον ''dendron'', tree. Growth During the early stages of growth, ''L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lepidodendron Joven Reconstrucción
''Lepidodendron'' is an extinct genus of primitive vascular plants belonging to the family Lepidodendraceae, part of a group of Lycopodiopsida known as scale trees or arborescent lycophytes, related to Isoetes, quillworts and Lycopodiopsida, lycopsids (club mosses). They were part of the coal forest flora. They sometimes reached heights of , and the trunks were often over in diameter. They thrived during the Carboniferous Period (358.9 to 298.9 million years ago). Sometimes erroneously called "giant club mosses", the genus was actually more closely related to modern quillworts than to modern club mosses. Within the form classification system used within paleobotany, ''Lepidodendron'' is both used for the whole plant as well as specifically the stems and leaves. Etymology The name ''Lepidodendron'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:λεπίς, λεπίς ', scale, and wikt:δένδρον, δένδρον ''dendron'', tree. Growth During the early stages of growth, ''L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycopodiopsid
Lycopodiopsida is a class of vascular plants known as lycopods, lycophytes or other terms including the component lyco-. Members of the class are also called clubmosses, firmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. They have dichotomously branching stems bearing simple leaves called microphylls and reproduce by means of spores borne in sporangia on the sides of the stems at the bases of the leaves. Although living species are small, during the Carboniferous, extinct tree-like forms formed huge forests that dominated the landscape and contributed to coal deposits. The nomenclature and classification of plants with microphylls varies substantially among authors. A consensus classification for extant (living) species was produced in 2016 by the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group (PPG I), which places them all in the class Lycopodiopsida, which includes the classes Isoetopsida and Selaginellopsida used in other systems. (See Table 2.) Alternative classification systems have used ranks fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycopodiopsida
Lycopodiopsida is a class of vascular plants known as lycopods, lycophytes or other terms including the component lyco-. Members of the class are also called clubmosses, firmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. They have dichotomously branching stems bearing simple leaves called microphylls and reproduce by means of spores borne in sporangia on the sides of the stems at the bases of the leaves. Although living species are small, during the Carboniferous, extinct tree-like forms formed huge forests that dominated the landscape and contributed to coal deposits. The nomenclature and classification of plants with microphylls varies substantially among authors. A consensus classification for extant (living) species was produced in 2016 by the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group (PPG I), which places them all in the class Lycopodiopsida, which includes the classes Isoetopsida and Selaginellopsida used in other systems. (See Table 2.) Alternative classification systems have used ranks fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal Forest
Coal forests were the vast swathes of wetlands that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian) and Permian times.Cleal, C. J. & Thomas, B. A. (2005). "Palaeozoic tropical rainforests and their effect on global climates: is the past the key to the present?" ''Geobiology'', ''3'', p. 13-31. As vegetable matter from these forests decayed, enormous deposits of peat accumulated, which later changed into coal. Much of the carbon in the peat deposits produced by coal forests came from photosynthetic splitting of existing carbon dioxide, which released the accompanying split-off oxygen into the atmosphere. This process may have greatly increased the oxygen level, possibly as high as about 35%, making the air more easily breathable by animals with inefficient respiratory systems, as indicated by the size of ''Meganeura'' compared to modern dragonflies. Coal forests covered tropical Euramerica (Europe, eastern North America, northwester ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleobotany
Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeography), and the evolutionary history of plants, with a bearing upon the evolution of life in general. A synonym is paleophytology. It is a component of paleontology and paleobiology. The prefix ''palaeo-'' means "ancient, old", and is derived from the Greek adjective , . Paleobotany includes the study of terrestrial plant fossils, as well as the study of prehistoric marine photoautotrophs, such as photosynthetic algae, seaweeds or kelp. A closely related field is palynology, which is the study of fossilized and extant spores and pollen. Paleobotany is important in the reconstruction of ancient ecological systems and climate, known as paleoecology and paleoclimatology respectively; and is fundamental to the study of green plant developm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stigmaria Heimans
''Stigmaria'' is a form taxon for common fossils found in Carboniferous rocks. They represent the underground rooting structures of coal forest lycopsid trees such as ''Sigillaria'' and ''Lepidodendron''. These swamp forest trees grew to 50 meters and were anchored by an extensive network of branching underground structures with "rootlets" attached to them. Analysis of the morphology and anatomy of these stigmarian systems suggests they were shoot-like and so they are called rhizomes or rhizophores. The stigmarian rhizomes are typically covered with a spiral pattern of circular scars where "rootlets" were attached. Since the stigmarian systems are shoot-like, these "rootlets" may be modified leaves, adapted to serve the function of roots. However, some paleontologists argue that the "rootlets" were true roots, with a complex branching structure and root hairs, comparable to the roots of the closest living relative of ''Lepidodendron'', the quillworts (genus ''Isoetes ''Isoete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms, like bacteria, are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, dodos, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isoetes
''Isoetes'', commonly known as the quillworts, is the only extant genus of plants in the family Isoetaceae, which is in the class of lycopods. There are currently 192 recognized species, with a cosmopolitan distribution but with the individual species often scarce to rare. Some botanists split the genus, separating two South American species into the genus ''Stylites'', although molecular data place these species among other species of ''Isoetes'', so that ''Stylites'' does not warrant taxonomic recognition. Species of ''Isoetes'' virtually identical to modern forms have existed since the Jurassic epoch. The name of the genus may also be spelled ''Isoëtes''. The diaeresis (two dots over the e) indicates that the o and the e are to be pronounced in two distinct syllables. Including this in print is optional; either spelling (''Isoetes'' or ''Isoëtes'') is correct. Description Quillworts are mostly aquatic or semi-aquatic in clear ponds and slow-moving streams, though several ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferous'' means "coal-bearing", from the Latin '' carbō'' ("coal") and '' ferō'' ("bear, carry"), and refers to the many coal beds formed globally during that time. The first of the modern 'system' names, it was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822, based on a study of the British rock succession. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two geological periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial animal life was well established by the Carboniferous Period. Tetrapods (four limbed vertebrates), which had originated from lobe-finned fish during the preceding Devonian, became pentadactylous in and diversified during the Carboniferous, including early amphibian line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bifacial Cambium
The vascular cambium is the main growth tissue in the stems and roots of many plants, specifically in dicots such as buttercups and oak trees, gymnosperms such as pine trees, as well as in certain other vascular plants. It produces secondary xylem inwards, towards the pith, and secondary phloem outwards, towards the bark. In herbaceous plants, it occurs in the vascular bundles which are often arranged like beads on a necklace forming an interrupted ring inside the stem. In woody plants, it forms a cylinder of unspecialized meristem cells, as a continuous ring from which the new tissues are grown. Unlike the xylem and phloem, it does not transport water, minerals or food through the plant. Other names for the vascular cambium are the main cambium, wood cambium, or bifacial cambium. Occurrence Vascular cambia are found in all seed plants except for five angiosperm lineages which have independently lost it; Nymphaeales, Ceratophyllum, Nelumbo, Podostemaceae, and monocots. A few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unifacial Cambium
The unifacial cambium (pl. cambia or cambiums) produces cells to the interior of its cylinder. These cells differentiate into xylem tissue. Unlike the more common bifacial cambium found in later woody plants, the unifacial cambium does not produce phloem to its exterior. Also in contrast to the bifacial cambium, the unifacial cambium is unable to expand its circumference with anticlinal cell division. Cell elongation provides a limited amount of expansion. Unifacial cambium plant morphology and life cycles The unifacial cambium allowed plants to grow as tall as 50 metres. Lacking secondary phloem, unifacial cambium plants developed alternative strategies to long range nutrient transport. For example, the stems of lycophyte The lycophytes, when broadly circumscribed, are a vascular plant (tracheophyte) subgroup of the kingdom Plantae. They are sometimes placed in a division Lycopodiophyta or Lycophyta or in a subdivision Lycopodiophytina. They are one of the oldest ... tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vascular Cambium
The vascular cambium is the main growth tissue in the stems and roots of many plants, specifically in dicots such as buttercups and oak trees, gymnosperms such as pine trees, as well as in certain other vascular plants. It produces secondary xylem inwards, towards the pith, and secondary phloem outwards, towards the bark. In herbaceous plants, it occurs in the vascular bundles which are often arranged like beads on a necklace forming an interrupted ring inside the stem. In woody plants, it forms a cylinder of unspecialized meristem cells, as a continuous ring from which the new tissues are grown. Unlike the xylem and phloem, it does not transport water, minerals or food through the plant. Other names for the vascular cambium are the main cambium, wood cambium, or bifacial cambium. Occurrence Vascular cambia are found in all seed plants except for five angiosperm lineages which have independently lost it; Nymphaeales, Ceratophyllum, Nelumbo, Podostemaceae, and monocots. A few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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