| P number: | P549464 |
|---|---|
| Caption: | Calamites, a Carboniferous horse tail. |
| Description: | Calamites is an equisetum or horsetail, which evolved in late Carboniferous times and was one of the commonly occurring plants that lived in the coal swamps about 300 million years ago. It still lives today (as a single genus called Equisetum), although they are much smaller (usually less than about half a metre tall) compared to their fossil cousins. Carboniferous horsetails were tree-sized, growing to heights of 16 metres and more. Despite the difference in size, modern plants are remarkably similar to their ancestors. Only a small length of the giant horsetail, Calamites, is shown here. This aerial stem is long and straight, and between the nodes it has a grooved pattern. It is subdivided into segments by regularly spaced rings of nodes from which rosettes of long slender leaves and, in some cases, branches, once extended. A hollow tube up the centre of the stem (originally the pith), is sometimes preserved (not shown here). The Plant Kingdom comprises multicellular organisms which grow from an embryo, have cellulose in their cell walls and photosynthesise. This definition separates them from algae (members of Kingdom Protoctista, and from which plants evolved) and fungi (which are placed in the Kingdom Fungae). There are two major groups of plant. A vascular plant has special cells that allow water to pass through it. Non-vascular plants (like mosses, hornworts and liverworts), which are rarely fossilised and known mainly from their spores, lack these special cells. |
| Photographer: | Unknown |
| Copyright statement: | NERC |
| Orientation: | Portrait |
| Size: | 320.86 KB; 279 x 1000 pixels; 24 x 85 mm (print at 300 DPI); 74 x 265 mm (screen at 96 DPI); |
| Average Rating: | Not yet rated |
| Categories: | Best of BGS Images/ Fossils |
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