The fossil above is a section from a large sized, 100 foot (30 meter) lycopod or scale tree trunk which originated around 380 million years ago during the late Devonian Period. The various lycopod trees reached their zenith during the era of coal swamp forests from the Carboniferous Period about 355 to 300 million years ago.

The fossil is very dense and heavy of petrified wood. Petrified wood materializes when plant matter is buried by sediment and protected from decay caused by oxygen and organisms. Subsequently, groundwater rich in dissolved solids flows through the tree sediments, replacing the original plant material with silica, calcite, pyrite, iron or another inorganic material such as opal.

The above fossil shows leaf imprints grown on giant lycopod trees such as Sigillaria and Lepidodendron, cast in coal shale. The trunks of lycopod scale trees were topped with plumes of long thin, grass-like leaves which were often arranged like that of a bottle brush. The trees had relatively short life-cycles growing rapidly reaching heights sometimes up to 130 feet (40 meters). The trunks most distinguishing feature displays patterns of deep grooves, the result of leaf scars along the trunk’s surface. The tree trunks actually would have appeared hairy-like, at least as they grew.

Lycopod forests of plenty generated tremendous amounts of decaying peat. After millions of years, it became coal buried deep in the ground, later, fueling the Industrial Revolution. More importantly, their decaying matter helped revolutionize Earth’s emerging forests by creating soil for trees to develop deeper root systems. This enabled new tree varieties to spread further inland without relying solely on wet swampy habitats.

LYCOPOD SCALE TREE CLASSIFICATIONS

Botanical Names:  Sigillaria and Lepidodendron

Common Name: Scale Tree or Lycopod Tree

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Lycopod-iophyta (oldest vascular plant group, reproduced by releasing spores)

Class: Isoetopsida (plants with hollow quill-like leaves spirally arranged on a single, unbranched vein) ie quillworts, scale trees, spike moss)

Order: Lepidondrales (primitive vascular tree-like plants related to lycopods which are loosely grouped with ferns)

Family: Lepidodencraceae (has arrangement of spores on cones born on the shoots)

Genera:  Sigillaria (possess deep lace pattern on trunk with bottle brush crown of leaves)

Genera: Lepidodendron (possess deep diamond pattern on trunk with plume of grassy leaves on crown)

All rights reserved © Fossillady 2025