Animal or Vegetable?

[Billymachi]

This is a rock shop purchase.   The owner is an expert in dinosaur gembone from the Morrison.    He also deals in Hermanophyton ferns,  etc so he also knows a bit about paleobotany.   But this piece was a mystery to him.

 

Its very well agatized and the fine details are preserved.

 

At first it looks like a limb cast.   The exterior is coarsely wrinkled, like bark.    The cross-section does not preserve a convincing ring of a bark layer, but there is some kind of concentric character.

 

It has some characteristics of a limb bone.   The geometry and size fit that thought.   But the rough exterior is a contradiction.   The interior has some well developed cell structure,  but its patchy.   

As I write this I am thinking maybe its a petrified root.   Or maybe not.

 

The first 2 photos are the same (could not delete) and are a cut and polished face.   Last photo is an unpolished cut end.  

 

Its a fun one.   Enjoy and I look forward to your comments.

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

Looks like a piece of "chunkasaurus" to me. The rough edges are likely because its fragmentary. Patchy cell structure likely indicates it is from an edge of the bone and not a central piece.

[Rockwood]

Pixels we need more pixels. I'm having problems with cortical bone from here myself.

[Billymachi]

More photos,  more pixels.

 

 

 

 

[Rockwood]

Palmoxylon 

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

7 hours ago, Rockwood said:

Palmoxylon 

Good call! I agree with this assessment 

[Billymachi]

So it is a vegetable!   Thanks for your help.

[daves64]

19 minutes ago, Billymachi said:

So it is a vegetable!   Thanks for your help.

Vegetable and mineral both.. Mineralized veggies. 

[Rockwood]

I'd go with the asparagus, with perhaps a pinch of sodium chloride. I'm afraid the palm looks overdone.   

[ThePhysicist]

I disagree, I think it's bone. Can someone point to a piece of palm that more closely resembles the internal structure, for my own edification?

 

 

[Rockwood]

Sorry. I'm sure the book I used as reference (Ancient Forests) must be copyrighted.   

My thought is that the section is from the center,  near the base of the trunk.

[JohnJ]

1 hour ago, ThePhysicist said:

I disagree, I think it's bone. Can someone point to a piece of palm that more closely resembles the internal structure, for my own edification?

 

 

 

Agreed.

 

@Billymachi are more details visible on the cut surface when it is damp?

[Billymachi]

This is very exciting.   I own the missing link between the mineral,  vegetable, and animal kingdoms!  

[Billymachi]

I took a wet pic.   The cut end looks the same to me wet or dry.   The polished end expresses the most detail.  

 

I have seen a fair bit of bone but not with this corrugated exterior.  The geometry is compelling (rod-like).    The internal structure does not translate well from one end to the other like I might expect of limb bone. 

 

A third possibility.   Perhaps a turd (coprolite)?

[darrow]

This looks very much like the spongey meshlike structure of cancellous bone and not at all like vascular bundle structure of palm.  The external surface is unusual but the internal structure puts me firmly in the bone camp.

[JohnJ]

It looks unlike any fossil palmwood I have seen on the polished surface or exterior.

[Rockwood]

4 hours ago, JohnJ said:

It looks unlike any fossil palmwood I have seen on the polished surface or exterior.

I guess I do have to back off a step. I still think that's a funny lookin' bone though. 

I'm not certain it's not a pithy look at palm. 

[darrow]

Perhaps a fragment of a horn core?  That is the only think I can think of to explain the peculiar surface.  

[Rockwood]

28 minutes ago, darrow said:

Perhaps a fragment of a horn core?  That is the only think I can think of to explain the peculiar surface.  

Could be. Perhaps @Troodon is around for a look ?

[Troodon]

Horn?  No idea never seen one polished.  The inside face does looks like bone but the outside surface to rough and irregular to be one... 

[Rockwood]

It's looking like we may be almost back to square one ? 

[DPS Ammonite]

Maybe a poorly preserved tree fern such as Psaronius.

[Rockwood]

3 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Maybe a poorly preserved tree fern

I think we may have a winner.

It would explain the outside, be temporally correct to tag, and the C shapes and other slight indications of vascularization are a good fit. I think some did grow a rind like covering on the trunk too. 

[ThePhysicist]

On 1/21/2021 at 7:06 AM, DPS Ammonite said:

Maybe a poorly preserved tree fern such as Psaronius.

I'll do you one better:

 

^ palm root from Indonesia (unident.)

 

I change my mind.

[Kato]

On 1/21/2021 at 6:06 AM, DPS Ammonite said:

Maybe a poorly preserved tree fern such as Psaronius.

I've been off target lately and have no guesses about the specimen in question...

 

I need to do a double and triple check but I think Psaronius ended its time in the Permian and the subject specimen is Jurassic?