Rhyniophytoids are thought to be one of the most original vascular plant groups which were firstly found from the Rhynie chert Lagerst?tte, Aberdeenshire, Scotland and from then, this group was rarely found elsewhere.
Recently, study by Prof. XU Honghe from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues discovered the fertile structure showing rhyniophytoid’s affinities through re-examinations to specimens assigned to zosterophylls from the Lower Devonian of Guangxi, southwestern China. Newly-discovered plant is small-sized, dichotomous branched, with terminal single sporangium, showing similar to the genus Aberlemnia Gonezet Gerrienne and being also comparable to some mesofossil morphotypes of early land plants from the Early Devonian (Lochkovian) Old Red Sandstone floras. This study adds new data to the generally zosterophyll-dominated Early Devonian floras of South China and sheds some lights on the palaeophytogeography of rhyniophytoids.
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy (NIGPAS).
Rhyniophytoid from the Lower Devonian of Guangxi, South China
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