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400 mya plant/U Cal Berkeley

From ScienceDaily:

Benca described this 400-million-year-old fossil lycopod, Leclercqia scolopendra, and created a life-like computer rendering. The stem of the lycopod is about 2.5 millimeters across.

File:Lycopodium plant.jpg
club moss ( Lycopodiella cernua)/Eric Guinther

Examples of the lycopod or club moss abound today:

Called Leclercqia scolopendra, or centipede clubmoss, the plant lived during the “age of fishes,” the Devonian Period. At that time, lycopods — the group Leclercqia belonged to — were one of few plant lineages with leaves. Leclercqia shoots were about a quarter-inch in diameter and probably formed prickly, scrambling, ground-covering mats. The function of Leclercqia’s hook-like leaf tips is unclear, Benca said, but they may have been used to clamber over larger plants. Today, lycopods are represented by a group of inconspicuous plants called club mosses, quillworts and spikemosses.

They may be “inconspicuous” but they are certainly a durable group. They used to be forests.

File:A small cup of coffee.JPG

Note: Is it correct to refer to a computer animation of a plant?

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Note: Sometimes in nature nothing is what it seems: That thing below isn’t a flower and the thing hanging off it isn’t a stick: