Extinct genus of vascular plants of the Carboniferous to Triassic
Lepidodendron
Temporal range: Early Carboniferous–Late Permian
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S
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Trunk fragment, showing leaf base scars
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
Clade:
Tracheophytes
Clade:
Lycophytes
Class:
Lycopodiopsida
Order:
†Lepidodendrales
Family:
†Lepidodendraceae
Genus:
†Lepidodendron Sternberg, 1820
Species
L. aculeatumSternberg 1820
L. batoviiChachlov 1948
L. obovatumSternberg 1820
L. whitehillianumAnderson & Anderson 1986
Synonyms
Dimicheleodendron B.A.Thomas & C.J.Cleal
Lepidodendron is an extinct genus of primitive lycopodian vascular plants belonging the order Lepidodendrales. It is well preserved and common in the fossil record. Like other Lepidodendrales, species of Lepidodendron grew as large-tree-like plants in wetland coal forest environments. They sometimes reached heights of 50 metres (160 feet),[1] and the trunks were often over 1 m (3.3 ft) in diameter. They are often known as "scale trees", due to their bark having been covered in diamond shaped leaf-bases, from which leaves grew during earlier stages of growth. However, they are correctly defined as arborescent lycophytes. They thrived during the Carboniferous Period (358.9 to 298.9 million years ago), and persisted until the end of the Permian around 252 million years ago. Sometimes erroneously called "giant club mosses", the genus was actually more closely related to modern quillworts than to modern club mosses. In the form classification system used in paleobotany, Lepidodendron is both used for the whole plant as well as specifically the stems and leaves.
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Lepidodendron is an extinct genus of primitive lycopodian vascular plants belonging the order Lepidodendrales. It is well preserved and common in the...
Carboniferous and Permian periods. It is related to the more famous Lepidodendron, and more distantly to modern quillworts. This genus is known in the...
which had been briefly deforested by flooding: Synchysidendron and Lepidodendron in mineral-soil areas and Lepidophloios in peat areas. Cordaites may...
system of aerating tissues. Two other parichnos channels can be found on Lepidodendron stem surfaces, though these do not occur in the Diaphorodendraceae....
significantly. During the Carboniferous, tree-like plants (such as Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, and other extinct genera of the order Lepidodendrales)...
rooting structures of arborescent lycophytes such as Sigillaria and Lepidodendron under the order Lepidodendrales. The Paleozoic swamps had tree-like...
trunks 30 meters high and up to 1.5 meters in diameter. These included Lepidodendron (with its fruit cone called Lepidostrobus), Halonia, Lepidophloios and...
microphylls. Lycopodites, an early lycopod-like fossil External mold of Lepidodendron from the Upper Carboniferous of Ohio. Lycopod bark showing leaf scars...
climate during glacial phases. (The name should not be confused with Lepidodendron, an important group of long-extinct pteridophytes in the phylum Lycopodiophyta...
contains the fossilised stumps and the stigmarian system of eleven extinct Lepidodendron lycopsids, which are sometimes described as "giant club mosses" but...
was packed with plant remains such, mainly lycopod fragments such as Lepidodendron. This information not only helped us figure out that Arthropleura was...
trunks 30 meters high and up to 1.5 meters in diameter. These included Lepidodendron (with its cone called Lepidostrobus), Anabathra, Lepidophloios and Sigillaria...
those of Isoëtes can reach 25 centimetres in length, and the extinct Lepidodendron bore microphylls up to 78 cm long. The enation theory of microphyll...
began. The swamp-loving lycopod trees of the Carboniferous, such as Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, were progressively replaced in the continental interior...
after the CRC. However, the composition of the forests changed from a lepidodendron-dominated forest to one of predominantly tree ferns and seed ferns....
club moss, with arborescent forms named Lepidophloios, Sigillaria and Lepidodendron, and herbaceous forms called Lycopodites and Cormophyton; sphenopsids...
are replaced by lenticels. The extinct arboreal plants of the genera Lepidodendron and Sigillaria were the first to have distinct aeration structures that...
respect to those of the extinct Carboniferous arborescent lycophytes Lepidodendron and Lepidostrobus. The seed plant gametophyte life cycle is even more...
"trees" (actually giant club mosses) were very tall, some, such as Lepidodendron, up to 50 metres (164 ft) tall. Archaeothyris and the other early amniotes...
needed] are evident in Devonian and Carboniferous progymnosperm forests. Lepidodendron forests dating to the Carboniferous period have charred peaks, evidence...
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