#i first saw this chart writing my isoetes term paper and was thinking about it all morning

[botanyshitposts]

Fossil genera of Late Palaeozoic lepidophyte stems showing surface views with leaf bases or leaf scars, vascular and parichnos marks in the leaf scars and ligule pit apertures, and side views of the ‘uncompressed’ leaf bases and laminae. Redrawn from Thomas and Meyen (1984). 

- Introduction to Plant Fossils, Cleal and Thomas, 2009

i was talking about different shapes of leaf cushions used for identification in this post and i remembered this chart showing a few pieces of different lepidophyte trunk fossils from the same era. all of these ‘scales’ are leaf cushions left behind from microphylls, alongside what they might have looked like supporting leaves on the living plant 400 million years ago; although Lepidodendron was arguably the most important species in this group in terms of ecology and the biggest in terms of size, this one gives a cool survey of some of their relatives, close and distant, living around the same time. 

#eyyy now that im back at school i have access to my uni's big library and their fancy scanners #i first saw this chart writing my isoetes term paper and was thinking about it all morning #but i had to wait until NOON to get the book and scan it in #they have a little paleobotany section i wonder if they have any good Noodle Pictures(tm) #paleobotany