Another Fern With Which I Could Use Help! :)

[flowntheloop]

Yesterday, I spent about 30-45 minutes sitting in a pile of mud/rocks and practicing breaking apart softer rocks with a hammer and chisel (a little closer to shale--pretty easy to split into layers--but I'm not sure?) to see what I could find. This was one of the prettiest things I found!

Northeast Alabama, US. Pottsville Formation.

Thank you for your patience with my lack of knowledge. I'm currently waiting for a paycheck so I can purchase a book that will hopefully decrease my posts here!

Edited February 26 by flowntheloop
location

[Collector9658]

Can't help with ID, but great find! I think the more posts on the forum, the merrier!

[Fossildude19]

Very cool fossil.

I vote for some sort of Neuropteris sp.

 

@paleoflor   @fiddlehead

Some close-ups and reversed images:

 

 

[flowntheloop]

@Fossildude19 Oh that reversed image is a great idea! Thank you for making me aware of that!

[Mark Kmiecik]

Possibly, Sphenopteris, but let's wait for a few others to chime in.

[paleoflor]

Definitely some neuropterid. Difficult to ID from photo without a good sense of scale. What is the vein density, for example? The dissertation of J.-P. Laveine (1967) is a good reference for neuropterids (here are the text and atlas volumes).

[flowntheloop]

33 minutes ago, paleoflor said:

Definitely some neuropterid. Difficult to ID from photo without a good sense of scale. What is the vein density, for example? The dissertation of J.-P. Laveine (1967) is a good reference for neuropterids (here are the text and atlas volumes).

Thanks! I can take some photos for scale today! I will post them ASAP

[ntloux]

I can't tell if the pinnules radiate from one point or not.  But the spread suggests a possible neuropteris.  Or it could possibly be a cyclopteris.

[Mark Kmiecik]

I'm leaning towards Eusphenopteris neuropteroides.

[paleoflor]

On 3/2/2024 at 8:37 PM, Mark Kmiecik said:

I'm leaning towards Eusphenopteris neuropteroides.

 

This ID doesn't fit with the shape and large size of the terminal pinnules relative to the lateral pinnules of the ultimate pinnae.

[Mark Kmiecik]

59 minutes ago, paleoflor said:

 

This ID doesn't fit with the shape and large size of the terminal pinnules relative to the lateral pinnules of the ultimate pinnae.

 

What do you think about Eusphenopteris trifoliolata as a possibility?

[paleoflor]

1 hour ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

 

What do you think about Eusphenopteris trifoliolata as a possibility?

 

To be honest, I do not think the specimen under consideration is an Eusphenopteris but rather some neuropterid, as initially suggested by @Fossildude19.

[Mark Kmiecik]

Sphenopteris neuropteroides from Germany.

 

[doushantuo]

Taxonomy and nomenclature of Sphenopteris and allied fossil-genera of Carboniferous seed-plant fronds

Christopher J. Cleal,  Barry A. Thomas

Pages: 862-879

TAXON, aug. 2023

 

First Published: 29 May 2023

 

size: 4.4 mB

 

TAXON - 2023 - Cleal - Taxonomy and nomenclature of Sphenopteris and allied fossil‐genera of Carboniferous seed‐plant.pdf

Edited March 16 by doushantuo