Search the Community

Just wanted to share the beauty of this recent carboniferous find. I just sliced this yesterday. It still needs some work and i need to finish the other half, but take a look at the vascular cell structures of this fern tree (psaronius sp.). There is pyrite throughtout this piece, giving it a real luster (it's hard to see in the pictures).

After my original post I learned that the feathery fossils are probably leaves of a scale tree - maybe emergent leaves. They are often described as "similar to conifers" and are feathery as you can see. Are they Lepidodendron leaves or Siggilaria or Calamites? There are also listings in the literature of "LONG" grass-like leaf appendages coming straight out from the above ground (or above water) trunks of the Lepidodendron tree. How do we tell if the side appendages are long leaves or rootlets? One type of leaf appendage is often described as coming straight out from the trunk, looking more like grass, and this is confusing. In the fossils we have found, there appear to be rootlets coming out from the underground (or underwater) trunk stems, but in some fossils it looks like the long appendages are coming out from the above-water trunk because they are long and leaf shaped and do not look like rootlets. Interested in references clarifying the leaf types. The images of small feathery leaves came from cracking open already-thin shale pieces from the St. Clair fossil pits (Llewellyn Formation, Carboniferous/Pennsylvanian, St. Clair, 300-308 mya). The images of the core trunk stems with appendages were excavated from the shale floor of the fossil pit. An example of the larger specimens showing the appendages coming out from the sides is included - some people believe these are rootlets but they may also be leaves coming out from the trunk....ideas? These files are listed as Lepidodendron but actually if it's a root it is called Stigmaria (which includes roots of Lepidodendron and Siggilaria - if the shoots coming out the sides are LEAVES then they are designated Lepidophylloides).