Devonian plant from Catskill formation

[SteveE]

From a long abandoned bluestone quarry in NE Pennsylvania.  Devonian, Catskill formation.

Found by my sister-in-law, who was really looking for live birds!     Ideas?

 

 

[FossilDAWG]

Very nice! 

@fossilcrazy should be able to suggest an ID.

 

Don

[Tidgy's Dad]

That's a lovely specimen! 

[SteveE]

Just stumbled on a lead.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteris ?    Would love to drill down to species.   The abstract in this paper sounds Interesting too https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018218303274

[Rockwood]

No help with species, but I definitely agree with archaeopteris.

[Fossildude19]

Try this pdf. 

 

[Mark Kmiecik]

13 hours ago, SteveE said:

Found by my sister-in-law, who was really looking for live birds!     Ideas?

She failed miserably!  But she did find a great fossil instead. I agree with archaeopteris also.

 

Note: Archaeopteris (plant) -- not Archaeopteryx (bird). Yeah, I know. Sometimes it's just annoying, ain't it? Consultation within the community should be required before naming taxa.

[dalmayshun]

love plants, and that one is great...had it been split, was it lying open?

[sTamprockcoin]

Unusually good /complete  for that area! Make sure to keep a record of the specific locality if it is known.

[Rockwood]

1 hour ago, sTamprockcoin said:

Unusually good /complete

Typically (plant fossils in general) one sorts through hundreds of odd fragments looking for something as frond like.

[SteveE]

4 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

She failed miserably! 

3 hours ago, dalmayshun said:

love plants, and that one is great...had it been split, was it lying open?

 

1 hour ago, sTamprockcoin said:

Unusually good /complete  for that area! Make sure to keep a record of the specific locality if it is known.

 

33 minutes ago, Rockwood said:

Typically (plant fossils in general) one sorts through hundreds of odd fragments looking for something as frond like.

 

Extended family owns a large parcel including one whole side of the small mountains in the area.   Apparently about 15 years ago, she sat down on the rubble heap on the old quarry floor, and seeing a stone already split in two but still lying stacked like pancakes, she just picked up one half.   The mirror image mold and cast are fantastic.   Maybe she should have bought a powerball ticket that day.  Being in the rubble heap, it will take some poking around to try to figure out where it came from, and if I understand this paper correctly, the layer could be wafer thin and somewhere on the steep forested mountainside, hidden again to view with the passage of a 100 years since the quarry was last operated.  But it will definitely be fun to snoop around during future visits to that side of the family.  

 

 

[SteveE]

And then there's this informative thread, and this comment with some species ID tips.  Archaeopteris post  Here's another shot of my sis-in-law's find.... with the subdivided tips of thie leaves I'm thinking this too is an A. macilenta.  but I'm a noob.  Anyone think different?

[Ailanna]

I'm a contemporary botanist and know very little about paleobotany, but this is such a cool find. I was inspired to dig through my textbooks and actually found a small snippet on the Archaeopteridales, which is where the diagram of the evolving leaf shape comes from (Peter Raven's Botany: An Introduction to Plant Biology). He writes, "A more derived progymnosperm was Archaeopteris in the order Archaeopteridales. These were trees up to 8.4 m tall with abundant wood and secondary phloem. Stems of Archaeopteris had a siphonostele, pith surrounded by a ring of primary xylem bundles, much like modern conifers and dicots. Although the "fronds" of archaeopterids resembled fern leaves, close examination reveals that they were actually planated branch systems and that the ultimate "leaflets" were really spirally arranged simple leaves. Webbing was only partial in A. macilenta, but it is complete in A. halliana and A. obtusa; these can be considered full-fledged megaphylls."

 

(Edited to remove a photo of the page in question.)

 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Ailanna

[Fossildude19]

53 minutes ago, SteveE said:

And then there's this informative thread, and this comment with some species ID tips.  Archaeopteris post  Here's another shot of my sis-in-law's find.... with the subdivided tips of thie leaves I'm thinking this too is an A. macilenta.  but I'm a noob.  Anyone think different?

 

 

Looks like a pretty good match to me.

Well done!

 

 

[Rockwood]

7 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

with the subdivided tips of thie leaves I'm thinking this too is an A. macilenta.  but I'm a noob.  Anyone think different?

Can't hold my peace. This couple should not be wed. I see less division of  halliana.

[Fossildude19]

2 hours ago, Rockwood said:

Can't hold my peace. This couple should not be wed. I see less division of  halliana.

I can see what you are saying, Dale, but I'm not totally convinced.  

This looks like a match to me: 

Especially on the left.

[hemipristis]

very nice!

[SteveE]

I agree its hard to tell from my good-but-not-great photos.... I apologize for the hack job shooting with my hand held IPod and handlens..... the sample lives with the kinfolk.  Next time I go up there I'll have to bring along some taxonomy papers and much better light & optics.    Thanks for all the input!