STIGMARIA: FOSSILISED ROOT OF A GIANT PREHISTORIC TREE - 300 million years old - Yorkshire

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STIGMARIA: Fossilised root of a giant prehistoric tree

300 million years old

(Carboniferous period)

Barnsley, Yorkshire

Stigmaria is the name given to the branching roots of giant club mosses (lycopods) such as Sigillaria and Lepidodendron that lived during the Carboniferous period and were a large part of the tropical Coal Measures forests.

Although some of these trees reached a height of over 40 metres (130 ft) they were really only gigantic herbs and not true trees. Coal is thought to have been formed mostly of the roots of lycopod trees.

This specimen has been preserved in three dimensions. It is slightly waterworn.

THE COAL MEASURES FORESTS

In the Carboniferous period Britain was situated near the equator and covered by dense tropical rain forest with giant trees and strange fern-like plants. Much of this vegetation became layers of coal, but some plants left impressions in mud which hardened into stone.

Flowering plants had not yet evolved and the dominant vegetation was giant clubmosses, horsetails and seed ferns growing on the banks of the coal-forming swamps. Animal life at the time was dominated by insects which included dragonflies with a two-metre wingspan.

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Size: approx.10 x 8 x 5 centimetres
Weight: 768 grams