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Picking up the pieces: New charcoalified plant mesofossils (eophytes) from a Lower Devonian Lagerst?tte in the Welsh Borderland, UK

Edwards, Dianne ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9786-4395, Morris, Jennifer L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7453-3841, Axe, Lindsey and Duckett, Jeffrey G. 2022. Picking up the pieces: New charcoalified plant mesofossils (eophytes) from a Lower Devonian Lagerst?tte in the Welsh Borderland, UK. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 297 , 104567. 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2021.104567

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Abstract

The discovery of land plant spores with permanent tetrad and dyad configurations in Middle Ordovician rocks indicated a pioneering phase of phytoterrestrialisation that predated trilete spore-bearing tracheophytes. Limited studies on Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian examples suggest that the producers possessed characters of both tracheophytes and bryophytes, leading to the erection of a new clade of eophytes. Here we present an unprecedented comprehensive survey of hundreds of charcoalified eophytic mesofossils from a Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) Lagerstätte in the Welsh Borderland, UK, which reveals a wide range of branching in smooth axes with occasional stomata and conducting cells interpreted as predominantly involved in nutrient transport. Similar anatomy was discovered in fossils with usually fragmentary terminal sporangia containing evidence for permanent cryptospores. This raises the possibility that these small sporophytes of narrow axial diameter exhibited matrotrophy although the nature of the autotrophic gametophytes remains elusive. The sheer numbers of these tiny mesofossils in the fine-grained rocks at the locality indicate that these small plants were an important part of vegetation in Early Devonian times – a component that disappeared as vascular plants diversified and increased in size. Whether or not the pioneering Ordovician vegetation had exactly similar characteristics requires more information of gross morphology and anatomy of fossils in the intervening years.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher: Elsevier
ISSN: 0034-6667
Date of Acceptance: 18 November 2021
Last Modified: 24 May 2023 11:15
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/159889

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