
Aglaophyton major
Sign in to saveAglaophyton major (or more correctly Aglaophyton majus) was the sporophyte generation of a diplohaplontic, pre-vascular, axial, free-sporing land plant of the Lower Devonian (Pragian stage, around ). It had anatomical features intermediate between those of the bryophytes and vascular plants or tracheophytes.
Wikidata facts
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- Aglaophyton major reconstruccion en.jpg
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- time period
- Early Devonian
- taxon rank
- species
- taxon name
- Aglaophyton major
- Commons category
- Aglaophyton
- short name
- A. major
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Encyclopedic overview
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- Taxonomy
- Phylogeny
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Aglaophyton major (or more correctly Aglaophyton majus) was the sporophyte generation of a diplohaplontic, pre-vascular, axial, free-sporing land plant of the Lower Devonian (Pragian stage, around ). It had anatomical features intermediate between those of the bryophytes and vascular plants or tracheophytes.
A. major was first described by Kidston and Lang in 1920 as the new species Rhynia major. The species is known only from the Rhynie chert in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where it grew in the vicinity of a silica-rich hot spring, together with a number of associated vascular plants such as a smaller species Rhynia gwynne-vaughanii which may be interpreted as a representative of the ancestors of modern vascular plants and Asteroxylon mackei, which was an ancestor of modern clubmosses (Lycopsida).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Aglaophyton major” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.