| P number: | P549466 |
|---|---|
| Caption: | Neuropteris, a Carboniferous seed fern. |
| Description: | Late in Carboniferous times (about 300 million years ago), the first forests grew. Tree-sized plants lived in and around the tropical swamps and deltas of Britain. The trees were not as we know them today, but huge clubmosses, horsetails and seed-bearing plants (gymnosperms) such as the seed fern Neuropteris. Neuropteris looked like an ordinary Carboniferous fern, but underneath its leaf-like fronds, seeds were attached. The illustrated specimen is the upper surface of one of these fronds. It is composed of a short branch along which are paired leaves. It is probable that cycads and flowering plants evolved from seed ferns, although they went into extinction during Cretaceous times. 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: | 438.25 KB; 608 x 1000 pixels; 51 x 85 mm (print at 300 DPI); 161 x 265 mm (screen at 96 DPI); |
| Average Rating: | Not yet rated |
| Categories: | Best of BGS Images/ Fossils |
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