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Lepidodendron Root Stigmaria Replica measures 7.9 inches. The Lepidodendron Root Stigmaria Replica is Museum quality fossil polyurethane cast made in USA. Stigmaria. Pennsylvanian Michigan.
Vegetation of the carboniferous Pennsylvanian swamps of Manning Canyon, Utah. Lepidodendron also known as the scale trees is an extinct genus of primitive, vascular, tree-like plants related to the isoetes (quillworts) and lycopsids (club mosses). They were part of the coal forest flora.
They sometimes reached heights of over 100 feet, and the trunks were often over 3.3 feet in diameter. They thrived during the Carboniferous Period and were found until the Late Triassic, about 205 Ma) before going extinct. Sometimes erroneously called “giant club mosses”, the genus was actually more closely related to modern quillworts than to modern club mosses.
Lepidodendron species were comparable in size to modern trees. The plants had tapering trunks as wide as 6 ft 7 in. at their base that rose to about 100 feet arising from an underground system of horizontally spreading branches that were covered with many rootlets.
Though the height of the trees make the plants similar to modern trees, the constant dichotomy of branches created a habit that contrasts with that of modern trees. At the ends of branches were oval-shaped cones that had a similar shape to modern cones of a spruce or fir.
As the trees aged, the wood produced by the unifacial cambium decreased towards the top of the plant such that terminal twigs resembled young Lepidodendron stems. The stems and branches of the trees contained little wood as compared to modern trees.
By the Mesozoic era, the giant lycopsids had died out and were replaced by conifers as well as smaller quillworts. This may have been the result of competition from the emerging woody gymnosperms.
Lepidodendron is one of the more common plant fossils found in Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous) age rocks. They are closely related to other extinct lycopsid genera.
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