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Audur - An Introduction To The Mezozoic Paleobotany PDF
Audur - An Introduction To The Mezozoic Paleobotany PDF
The Mesozoic age was a time of great changes, not only in animals but also in the
terrestrial vegetation. The Mesozoic flora was the vegetation eaten by the dinosaurs,
other reptiles and mammal herbivores during this Era. New genus and new plants,
e.g. gymnosperms, first appeared in their current recognizable forms. Ferns had
already appeared in Palaeozoic but their diversity and spread increased in the
Mesozoic. Conifers, cycads and the living fossil ginkgo dominated and made up the
forests. Angiosperms and flowers also appeared in Mesozoic and began to diversify
and take over from the other plants. This article expounds the main characteristic
features of the Mesozoic terrestrial vegetation. It follows the evolution of the flora in
chronological order and points out the most dominating plants, and the appearance of
new genera.
Before the Mesozoic Era, in the Cambrian others went through reduction of
Era, many land plants had made their numbers. Lycopod trees for example, that
appearance and put their mark on the dominated the coal-forming swamps in
environment on Earth. The land plants do the Carboniferous Period, horsetails, that
not appear to have undergone such a is a single genus of homosporpus vascular
dramatic mass extinction like the plants and cordaite trees, that looked very
terrestrial animals at the end of the similar to conifers but became extinct
Palaeozoic Era. Ferns, carboniferous probably in the Triassic Period. Among
pteridosperms (seed ferns), lycopsides plants that increased but were still
and horsetails had already appeared but abundant in the end of Permian, and
when come to the Mesozoic, the flora and beginning of Triassic, are ferns and seed
fauna changed in many different ways. ferns. Most trees that were bigger than
Some groups increased in diversity but
the
Figure 1
The numbers of species of terrestrial vegetation from Silurian to Tertiary. gymnosperms
appear in the Carboniferous period but diversify quickly during the Triassic period.
Angiosperms appeared early in Cretaceous and increased dramatically, in the number of
angiosperms through the mid-Cretaceous.
ferns belong to three groups of plants; all extinction by the end of the Triassic.
characterized by exposed seeds and had Glossopteris was long considered a fern
already appeared in the Permian; but later assigned to the gymnosperms.
bennettitales and cycads, followed by Some authorities consider glossopteris to
conifers and ginkgos. Late in the have been large trees with a substantial
Mesozoic the rise of angiosperms began trunk and close to the ancestral
and became extremely important in all of angiosperm.
Earths floras and also for insects and
bigger animals. GYMNOSPERMS
The first appearance of seed
plants, or spermatophytes, stretches back
FERNS AND SEED FERNS into Devonian. Seed plants have some
Ferns were a major component of Late major advantages over all other plants
Palaeozoic vegetation, but underwent a and are therefore very important. Most
dramatic decline at the end of the Permian important is that they are independent
Period. The Age of Ferns in the late from water as a intermediary of the
Carboniferous Period had passed. Only transport of the sperm to the egg. The
three families persisted into the Mesozoic seed allows the next generation to lie
Era and they have survived to the present dormant for months and in that way seed
day albeit with a relatively restricted can survive droughts, fire and other
distribution. Nevertheless, ferns were still natural catastrophes.
widespread in the Triassic and Jurassic Seed plants are divided into two
forests. groups, gymnosperms and angiosperms.
The remains of seed ferns are The phylum Gymnosperm first appeared
common fossils in rocks of Carboniferous in the Permian Era and included the
age. They are generally characterized as tallest and the oldest trees and many
having been slender trees or, in some common trees like pine, spruce, fir,
cases, woody, climbing vines. They were hemlock and cedar. The flora may have
generally large, up to 5 metres tall and looked similar to the flora today but
their large fronds were so fernlike that absence of flowering plant made it rather
these plants were long regarded as ferns homonymous.
but now they are known to be an artificial When the Jurassic Era began, the
group of primitive seed-bearing plants seed-fern floras of the Triassic declined in
which however were reduced in importance. The heirs were the
abundance and apparently failed to gymnosperms. One ancient group of
survive into the Jurassic Period. In fact gymnosperms that were among the most
sources are not unanimous about when prominent plants were cycads, unique and
seed ferns became extinct, but it is certain palm like plants with a crown of large
that they had disappeared from fossil compound leaves and a stout trunk,
record before the end of the Cretaceous sparcely branched or unbranched. They
Era. appeared at least 250 million years ago
Glossopteris is an extinct group of during the Permian Period, with possible
seed plants that arose during the Permian ancestors in the Upper Carboniferous, and
on the great southern continent of were so numerous and dominating in the
Gondwanaland and became a dominant Mesozoic Era, along with the
part of the southern flora but dwindled to superficially similar bennettitales, that
Figure 2
At the end of Paleozoic cordaites disappear but conifers appear and diversify rapidly in the Triassic Most
consider that the origin of cycads suggests that they originated from the pteridosperms.
this period is often called the Age of cycadeoids, because their growth habit
Cycads and Dinosaurs. During the and leaf structure is similar to that of the
Triassic and Jurassic, at the time of their cycads. Studies of seed- and pollen-
greatest diversity, cycads made up about producing structures of bennettitales have
20% of the flora of the world. Today demonstrated, however, that they are
there are 140 species in 10 genera. The remarkably different to those of cycads.
reproduction is slow, each individual of Their reproductive structure, that was
cycads is unisexual and they have, until bisexual in some species, suggests a
recently, been thought to be pollinated by closer relationship with angiosperms and
wind but new researches suggest that they therefore it is still uncertain where
have possibly been pollinated by beetles. bennettitales fit phylogenetically.
An extinct group of gymnosperms Even though the earliest conifer in
is bennettitales, an enigmatic group of the fossil record was discovered from the
Mesozoic gymnosperms that disappeared upper Carboniferous locality, the
from the fossil record during Cretaceous. evolution and radiation of the conifers
Bennettitales are sometimes called occurred ~ 248-206 million years ago in
the Triassic Era. It is suggested that they 1950s in temple gardens of China where
most probably inhabited the drier these sacred trees were carefully tended
environments of upper areas, from where and have been saved from extinction for
they subsequently radiated. the foreseeable future. Now Ginkgo
Characteristics that distinguish extant biloba is valued in many parts of the
Coniferales include a pyramidal world as an attractive, fungus- and insect-
arborescent growth form; small simple resistant ornamental tree. It looks more
leaves that are often needle-like in like a hardwood tree than a conifer and
appearance and the rooting systems are the unusual fan-shaped leaves are easily
simple in structure and consist of a recognized with parallel veins and the
branching tap-root system. Nine families outer margin either split or entire. It is a
that radiated at the Mesozoic time still slow-growing but tall and beautiful tree,
have widespread global coverage today. and unlike other gymnosperms it is
Five distinct vegetation biomes deciduous. In autumn the leaves turn a
have been identified for the biographical beautiful golden colour before falling. It
distribution of global vegetation during is also known as the maidenhair tree
the early Jurassic. The higher latitudes of because of the resemblance of its bilobed
both hemispheres were characterized by leaves to those of the maidenhair fern. G.
relatively low species diversity, but biloba may be the oldest living seed
dominance of ginkgos and macrophyllus plant, and it is regarded by some as one of
conifers, together with ferns. Closer to the the wonders of the world. Each individual
equator, in the lower latitudes where the is either male or female, bearing small
climate was warmer, the biomes were reproductive organs of one sex or another.
more rich of cycads, bennettitales and
microphyllus conifers. By the early
Jurassic, global floras, for the first time,
contained a significant component of
vegetation recognizably similar to the
present days.
Figure 4
Ginkgo: (a) habit of G.Biloba; (b) fossil
(upper) and modern (lower) leaves; (c)
fossil male reproductive structure; (d) fossil
Figure 3 pollen; (e) female reproductive structure
(fossil seed).
Leaf of Ginkgo Biloba
Figure 5
Suggested biomes for the Early Jurassic with representatives of the most abundant and/or dominant
fossil plant taxa shown.
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