Description

Late Mississippian

Manning Canyon Shale

Lehi, Utah, USA

Very good 15mm rare fruit of a seed-fern.

Seed, Fern.

Cornucarpus is a plant genus that has been tentatively assigned to the Order Gigantopteridales, which may not turn out to be a valid group.  One difficulty with many Paleozoic plants is that a number of groups are known by parts of plants (seeds, leaves, fruiting bodies, branches) each of which has been given its own name, and specimens of which are not always well-preserved.  It is rare to find a specimen that is a branch with leaves and other parts still attached.

The other difficulty is that many Paleozoic plants died out during that era or some time in the Mesozoic.  That means paleontologists have no modern relatives to compare them with.  It leaves a certain level of uncertainty for the professional when looking to assign a new taxon to a known group and a certain level of confusion for the layman wondering why his fossil leaf or seed doesn’t have much of a Wikipedia page or none at all.