Cladoxylopsida
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| Cladoxylopsida Temporal range:
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| Wattieza | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Division: | Pteridophyta(?)
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| Class: | †Cladoxylopsida
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| Orders/Genera | |
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†Pseudosporochnales | |
The cladoxylopsids are a group of plants known only as fossils that are thought to be ancestors of ferns and horsetails.
They had a central trunk, from the top of which several lateral branches were attached. Fossils of these plants originate in the Middle Devonian to Early Carboniferous periods (around 390 to 320 million years ago), mostly just as stems.
Cladoxylopsida contains two orders. The order Hyeniales is now included in Pseudosporochnales.[1]
Intact fossils of the Middle Devonian cladoxylopsid Wattieza show it to have been a tree, the earliest identified in the fossil record as of 2007.
References
- ^ Thomas N. Taylor, Edith L. Taylor, Michael Krings: Paleobotany. The Biology and Evolution of Fossil Plants . Second Edition, Academic Press 2009, ISBN 978-0-12-373972-8 , p. 387-401, 1028
Media related to Cladoxylopsida at Wikimedia Commons
- Stein, W. E., F. Mannolini, L. V. Hernick, E. Landling, and C. M. Berry. 2007. Giant cladoxylopsid trees resolve the enigma of the Earth's earliest forest stumps at Gilboa. Nature, 446:904-907.
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