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| Cordaites | |
|---|---|
| Name | Cordaites |
| Fossil range | Late Carboniferous–Permian |
| Kingdom | Plantae |
| Division | ? (seed plants) |
| Class | ? (gymnosperm-grade) |
| Order | Cordaitales |
| Family | Cordaitaceae |
| Genus | Cordaites |
Cordaites were an extinct group of late Palaeozoic seed plants known from extensive fossil assemblages across Euramerica and Gondwana. They are morphologically distinctive for long strap-shaped leaves and robust secondary wood, and they played major roles in Carboniferous and Permian floras that coexisted with contemporaneous vertebrates, invertebrates, and microbial communities documented from many famous Lagerstätten and stratigraphic sections. Specimens have been recovered in association with sediments that also yield material linked to celebrated places and institutions, reflecting broad geographic and stratigraphic importance.
Early descriptions of Cordaites were published by nineteenth-century naturalists working in locations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States, and later syntheses were produced by researchers affiliated with institutions like the Natural History Museum, London and the Smithsonian Institution. The macroscopic fossils include leaves, cones, seeds, and wood, which were collected from outcrops near the Rhynie Chert, Coal Measures (United Kingdom), and Pennsylvanian basins studied by teams from the British Geological Survey and universities such as University of Chicago and University of Göttingen. Paleobotanical monographs often compare Cordaites to coeval taxa described from the Karoo Basin, Appalachian Basin, and Donets Basin.
Taxonomic treatment places Cordaitales among Palaeozoic spermatophytes studied by systematists at the Royal Society and in treatments appearing in volumes from the Paleontological Society. Phylogenetic hypotheses have been debated in works by researchers connected to the University of Chicago and the University of Utrecht, with analyses referencing morphological characters used in cladistic matrices compiled at the American Museum of Natural History. Comparative studies often reference living representatives curated at the Kew Gardens herbarium when discussing anatomical homologies with extant gymnosperms such as representatives historically studied by scientists at the Smithsonian Institution.
Cordaites occurrences are abundant in Pennsylvanian and Permian strata collected from mining districts documented in reports by the United States Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Canada. Key localities include coal seams explored by companies and institutions like the Coal Research Establishment (UK) and basins described in regional monographs from the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Prussian Geological Survey. Their stratigraphic range spans formations known from chronostratigraphic charts curated by organizations such as the International Commission on Stratigraphy and appears in correlation studies involving sections in the Permian Basin and the Carboniferous of China.
Anatomical studies using thin sections and semithin slices prepared in laboratories at the University of Bonn, University of Michigan, and the Scandinavian Museum of Natural History have revealed secondary xylem with growth ring patterns compared in works from the Forestry Commission (UK) and the United States Forest Service. Leaf venation has been compared to fossil foliage described from the Coal Measures (United Kingdom) and floras documented by the Paleobotanical Laboratory at Harvard University. Reproductive organs preserved in museum collections at institutions including the Natural History Museum, Vienna and the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (Paris) show cone and seed morphologies analyzed alongside specimens housed at the University of Utrecht.
Paleoecological reconstructions produced by teams at the University of Leeds and the University of Kansas place Cordaites within habitat mosaics that also hosted taxa documented in faunal lists from the Mazon Creek and Joggins Fossil Cliffs localities. Studies by researchers affiliated with the Field Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum have inferred growth habits from wood anatomy and leaf morphology, proposing trees and tall shrubs that contributed to canopy structure in wetlands and seasonally dry forests studied in palynological surveys reported to the International Union for Quaternary Research and regional botanical projects.
Sedimentological and palynological evidence from cores and outcrops investigated by the British Geological Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management indicate that Cordaites occupied coastal plain, deltaic, and upland settings comparable to those reconstructed for the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse intervals and Permian aridification episodes discussed in syntheses from the PAGES (Past Global Changes) community. Association with co-occurring plant groups documented in floras from the Appalachian Basin and Central Europe situates them within assemblages that include taxa cataloged by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Cordaitales are often cited in evolutionary discussions by scholars at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and contributors to volumes from the Geological Society of America as informing the early diversification of seed plants and the origin of anatomical traits present in later gymnosperm lineages studied by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the Smithsonian Institution. Their decline and eventual disappearance by the end of the Permian coincide with mass-extinction patterns assessed in publications from the International Geoscience Programme and analyses involving Permian biotic turnovers at classic sections such as those investigated by the Geological Survey of Western Australia.
Category:Pennsylvanian plants Category:Permian plants Category:Fossil taxa described in the 19th century