Pennsylvanian Plant Questions

[minnbuckeye]

Last week, I was in NE Ohio for my nephew's wedding. During my spare time, I ran across to Ambridge Pa. and collected a few fossils. In trying to ID everything I found, I came up with a few ?s for you plant experts.

 

1. Calamites leaf?

 

  

 

 2. There are 2 bumpy things on this, top center (less obvious) and lower left. My guess is bark?

 

 

 

 3. Sphenopteris??

 

 

 

4. These are likely Pecopteris fronds of Psaronius fern trees. Can these two different species be further identified?

 

 

 

[Raggedy Man]

Some nice pieces there bud! Sorry, I can't help with your questions.

[minnbuckeye]

The remaining questions have to do with "stem like " finds. They are a bit confusing to me if you take away calamites, easy to ID. 

 

1. This is the only sample that I have that shows obvious stems or barbs coming from the main piece. Identifiable?? Possibly Dicranophyllum as a long shot????

 

  

 

2.  Here are a bunch of stems. anything obvious to attach a name to? These are for the most part smooth.

 

  

 

 3. This one has obvious calamiyes stems, middle and far right. How about the thick lower left stem and the thinner north south oriented stem. These do not have the Calamites divisions to them but do have linear lines running their length.

 

  

4. Then finally there are some rounded stick like specimens I run into.

 

  

 

 I may be asking for a lot on IDs, but each group is so distinctive, I am hoping someone can HELP !!!!

 

Thanks

Mike

[Innocentx]

If you look through Nimravis post here you'll find the answers. He knows what's what.

 

 

[Innocentx]

Very nice plant fossils, by the way.

[paleoflor]

3 hours ago, minnbuckeye said:

Last week, I was in NE Ohio for my nephew's wedding. During my spare time, I ran across to Ambridge Pa. and collected a few fossils. In trying to ID everything I found, I came up with a few ?s for you plant experts.

 

1. Calamites leaf?

 

  

 

 2. There are 2 bumpy things on this, top center (less obvious) and lower left. My guess is bark?

 

 

 

 3. Sphenopteris??

 

 

 

4. These are likely Pecopteris fronds of Psaronius fern trees. Can these two different species be further identified?

 

 

 

1. Indeed calamite foliage, Annularia sp.

2. Interesting specimen. Not sure. Can you provide a close-up of the tubercles? Might be arthropod or indeed some stem texture.

3. Aphlebia sp.

4. Indeed pecopterid pinnules.

[Wrangellian]

My first thought for #2 was arthropod also - Arthropleura? But didn't think it likely. Would be a cool addition to your collection if it did turn out to be that.

BTW have you coated these with something, or just photo'd them wet?

[minnbuckeye]

@Wrangellian, unfortunately this shale was extremely brittle and I had to get it back to Minnesota part in a suitcase and part through the mail. So I put a heavy coat of acraloid 40 (sp?) on them and still had some very nice plates break apart. I will dowse my keepers with acetone to get some of it off eventually.

 

 

[minnbuckeye]

@paleoflor, thanks for the IDs on the first set of questions. Any thought to the second set of questions. No other plant people are responding.

 

@Innocentx, thanks for the suggestion. With 798 replies, it will take some time to go thru this.

[paleoflor]

22 hours ago, minnbuckeye said:

The remaining questions have to do with "stem like " finds. They are a bit confusing to me if you take away calamites, easy to ID. 

 

1. This is the only sample that I have that shows obvious stems or barbs coming from the main piece. Identifiable?? Possibly Dicranophyllum as a long shot????

 

  

 

2.  Here are a bunch of stems. anything obvious to attach a name to? These are for the most part smooth.

 

  

 

 3. This one has obvious calamiyes stems, middle and far right. How about the thick lower left stem and the thinner north south oriented stem. These do not have the Calamites divisions to them but do have linear lines running their length.

 

  

4. Then finally there are some rounded stick like specimens I run into.

 

  

 

 I may be asking for a lot on IDs, but each group is so distinctive, I am hoping someone can HELP !!!!

 

Thanks

Mike

1. Resembles some pteridosperm stems, but difficult to say.

2. Again, difficult to say with confidence.

3. My guess would be calamitean also. Sometimes the nodes can be obscured or you might be dealing with long internodes.

4. My eye goes out mainly to the left-right running Calamites stem with beautiful node. Not sure which structures you are referring to with "rounded stick like specimens", though.

[paleoflor]

14 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

My first thought for #2 was arthropod also - Arthropleura? But didn't think it likely. Would be a cool addition to your collection if it did turn out to be that.

BTW have you coated these with something, or just photo'd them wet?

Was wondering the same thing, though the structure could also be vegetative. If indeed Arthropleura, you should see a texture that combines tubercles and larger knobs. See for example these photographs of a specimen I found earlier this year in the Carboniferous of France: 

 

 

[Wrangellian]

Interesting specimen, how big is it?

Yes I've seen the various size tubercles on other specimens online, figured this could be one spot where the tubercle sizes are not as variable as they might be on other parts of the carapace, but I don't know much about these critters.

[paleoflor]

8 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

Interesting specimen, how big is it?

Yes I've seen the various size tubercles on other specimens online, figured this could be one spot where the tubercle sizes are not as variable as they might be on other parts of the carapace, but I don't know much about these critters.

Should have mentioned the dimensions. Included the specimen in TFF Collections. That photograph has a field of view of about 8 cm wide. The images shown earlier in this thread are details of this main photograph (sorry, I have no direct scale for these).

 

A better picture of the surface structure is probably needed (small tubercles might be obscured here, I needed low-angle lighting to get them photographed). I included the reference images so that Mike can compare with his specimen in hand.

[Wrangellian]

Good, thanks.