Category
page 1Late Devonian plants

Archaeopteris
Archaeopteris is an extinct genus of progymnosperm tree with fern-like leaves. A useful index fossil, this tree is found in strata dating from the Upper Devonian to Lower Carboniferous (), the oldest fossils being 385 million years old, and had global distribution.
Progymnosperm
The progymnosperms are an extinct group of woody, spore-bearing plants that is presumed to have evolved from the trimerophytes, and eventually gave rise to the spermatophytes, ancestral to both gymnosperms and angiosperms (flowering plants). They have been treated formally at the rank of division Progymnospermophyta or class Progymnospermopsida (as opposite). The stratigraphically oldest known examples belong to the Middle Devonian order the Aneurophytales, with forms such as Protopteridium, in which the vegetative organs consisted of relatively loose clusters of axes. Tetraxylopteris is anoth
Equisetidae
Equisetidae is one of the four subclasses of Polypodiopsida (ferns), a group of vascular plants with a fossil record going back to the Devonian. They are commonly known as horsetails. They typically grow in wet areas, with whorls of needle-like branches radiating at regular intervals from a single vertical stem.
Protosalvinia
Protosalvinia is a prehistoric plant found commonly in shale from shoreline habitats of the Upper Devonian period. The name Protosalvinia is a misnomer. The name literally means early Salvinia, and was given in the erroneous belief that the fossils were an earlier form of the living aquatic fern Salvinia. It is no longer believed that the fossils come from a fern, but deciding exactly what the fossils represent is still a matter of debate.
Archaeopteridaceae
The Archaeopteridaceae are an extinct family of plants belonging to Progymnospermae, and were dominant forest trees of the Late Devonian.
Pseudobornia ursina
Pseudobornia is a genus of plants known only from fossils found from the Upper Devonian. It contains a single species Pseudobornia ursina, and is the earliest fossil assigned with certainty to the Equisetopsida.
Archaeopteridales
The Archaeopteridales are an extinct order of plants belonging to Progymnospermae, and dominant forest trees of the Late Devonian. They reproduced with spores rather than seeds. They were the evolutionary precursors of the conifers of gymnosperms which also include cycads and ginkgo.