Lepidodendron Aculeatum bark fossil replica

Description

Lepidodendron Aculeatum bark fossil replica measures 9″L x 6″W. Museum-grade polyurethane resin cast from original specimen. Made in USA. Carboniferous swamps of North American. Pennsylvanian. Manning Canyon, Utah.

Lepidodendron, also known as scale tree, is an extinct prehistoric tree which was one of the most abundant trees of the Carboniferous period.

It lived in some of the wettest parts of the prehistoric coal swamps and commonly grew in dense stands. Lepidodendron was primitive, vascular and absorbent and was related to modern day club mosses.

It could grow to a height of over 180 feet and its trunk was often over 6 feet, or 1.8 metres in diameter. Its trunk produced little wood, and was composed instead of mostly soft tissues.

Most of the structural support came from a thick, bark-like region in the trunk. The plant rarely branched, but when it did it was crowned with a cluster of long and narrow leaves which resembled large blades of grass spirally-arranged and ending in cones.

Both the leaves and the trunk were green in color. Common fossils include tightly-packed diamond-shaped leaf scars, which were left by the leaves as they dropped off the trunks and stems of the tree fern as it grew. By the end of the Mesozoic era, this plant had died out.

Lepidodendron likely grew rapidly and only lived about 10 to 15 years. It is believed that it only reproduced once close to the end of its lifetime. It did not produce true seeds, but instead reproduced by elaborate, encapsulated spores.

To visualize the diverse flora of the Carboniferous coal swamps, researchers can pair this diamond patterned Lepidodendron aculeatum bark fossil with a Annularia Calamites cross-section replica. This comparison highlights the structural differences between the lycopsid scale trees with their spirally arranged leaf scars and the sphenopsid horsetails characterized by their distinct jointed and ribbed stems.

Lepidodendron Aculeatum bark fossil replica Scientific classification:

• Kingdom:Plantae
• Clade: Tracheophytes
• Clade: Lycophytes
• Class: Lycopodiopsida
• Order: †Lepidodendrales
• Family: †Lepidodendraceae
• Genus: †Lepidodendron Sternberg, 1820

To visualize the diverse flora of the Carboniferous coal swamps, researchers can pair this diamond patterned Lepidodendron aculeatum bark fossil with a Annularia Calamites cross-section replica. This comparison highlights the structural differences between the lycopsid scale trees with their spirally arranged leaf scars and the sphenopsid horsetails characterized by their distinct jointed and ribbed stems.