Sciadophyton Temporal range:
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Sciadophyton fossil on display at the Museum of Man and Nature | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Subdivision: | † Rhyniophytina |
Class: | † Rhyniopsida |
Order: | † Rhyniales |
Family: | † Rhyniaceae |
Genus: | †
Sciadophyton Steinrnann 1930 |
Sciadophyton is a morphotaxon of lower Devonian plants known only from compression fossils. [2] [3] It is interpreted as the monoicous gametophyte of a vascular land plant, because its vascularised branches end in a cup-shaped structure bearing gametangia, both antheridia and archegonia, [4] but little structural information is preserved at the cellular level. It formed rosettes of stems, which may have radiated from a basal gametophytic corm-like thallus or from a central 'stem' or even from a root system, although there is not enough evidence to discriminate between these possibilities. [3]