Well-Preserved Fruiting Bodies Attached to Seed Fern Dicroideum

Umkomasia sp. on Dicroideum elongatum

Dicroideum odonontpteroides

Geological Time: Early Triassic

Size (25.4 mm = 1 inch): Matrix is 100 mm by 65 mm

Fossil Site: Camden Haven Group, Grants Head, Queensland, Australia

Fossil Code: AAF573

Price: Sold


Triassic Fruiting Bodies Attached to Seed Fern DicroideumDescription: Corystosperms or fork-leafed seed ferns are a group of extinct plants with mostly fern-like foliage but with real seeds found in the Southern Hemisphere lands of Gondwana. The flora of Gondwana evolved in isolation from the rest of Pangaea because of an arid desert that persisted near the equator. The seed fern Dicroideum, like Glossopteris was found throughout Gondwana, and helped lend credence to the theory of Continental Drift. They possessed elaborate reproductive structures which had their known nomenclature. The female reproductive structures were of the Umkomasia type, while the male pollen-bearing structures were termed Pteruchus (see my other offerings). They serve as important index fossils, and some data indicates that they may have persisted into the Cretaceous when the angiosperms first made their appearance. Few are ever listed for sale—Triassic plants are rarely available, and to my knowledge none have ever been offered with UMkomasia still attached to the twigs as seen here.

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