Lepidodendron (likewise referred to as a "Scale tree") is an out genus of primitive, vascular, arborescent (tree-arboriform) plant related to the Lycopsids (club mosses). It is occasionally known as Elephantine club-moss. It another time reached hights of terminated Xxx m, & a trunks were typically assibilate Unity m from side to side. It thrived in a period of the Carboniferous period.

Lepidodendron got tall, heavy trunks that seldom branched & were topped by using the crown of bifurcating branches bearing clusters of narrow leaves. These leaves were hanker & narrow, similar to big blades of grass. It were spirally-intended.

A closely packed diamond-shaped leaf scars left on a trunk & stems when the plant grew provide a bit of of the virtually all interesting & most common fossils in Carboniferous shales and accompanying coal deposits. These fossils look very much such as tyre tracks or even alligator skin.

A scars, or even leaf cushions, were composed of green, photosynthetic tissue. This is known because every is covered by the cuticle & is dotted using stomata, microscopic pores across which carbon dioxide from the air diffuses into plants. Also, a trunks of Lepidodendrons would use been green, unlike modern trees which own scaly, non-photosynthetic drab red or even gray bark.

Lepidodendron has been compared to the jumbo herb. A trunks produced super little, in case any, wood. Virtually all structural trend lines come from either the heavy, bark-prefer vicinity. This area remained in a area of the trunk as a rigid layer that did non flake off rather that of virtually all modern trees. When a tree grew, a leaf cushions expanded to accommodate a increasing breadth of the trunk.

A branches of this plant ended around cone-such as structures on the ceases of the branches. Lepidodendron did non develop seeds like many modern plants. Instead, it reproduced by means of spores. These are judged that these plants grew apace & lived 10-15 years. Occasionally mintage were probably monocarpic, meaning it reproduced simply it used to be that toward a prevent of their life span.

Lepidodendron in all likelihood sleep in a wettest area of the coal lakes that existed in the period of time of the Carboniferous period. It grew around heavy stands, in all likelihood with when numbers of when 1000 to 2000 elephantine clubmosses by the hectare. This would st& been imaginable because it did non branch until full-grown, and would stand spent lot of their dwells when unbranching poles. Inside its puerile stages, a trunk was supported by grass-such as leaves that grew straight away from a trunk.

Per Mesozoic era, a gargantuan clubmosses experienced died out & were replaced by smaller clubmosses, probably due to competition from either the emerging woody gymnosperms and other plants. Lepidodendron is one of a other commons plant fossils found in Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) age rocks. It is closely related a second out genus, Sigillaria.

Trivia

In the 19th Century, due to the reptilian look of the diamond-shaped leaf scar pattern, petrified trunks of Lepidodendron were exhibited at fairgrounds as giant fossil lizards or snakes.

A title Lepidodendron comes from either a Greek lepido, scale, & dendron, tree.