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set: fossils // series: coal // picture: LEPIDODENDRIDSlepidodendrids continued.
This group of trees reached 30m high but had little true wood and the softer cortical tissues easily rotted leaving a hollow stump which was later filled with sand. The lepidodendrids (including Lepidodendron, illustrated here) belong to a group of plants known as the lycopsids which survive today only as a small group of herbaceous plants which include the club mosses. This tree is from the Upper Carboniferous of Joggins, Nova Scotia, Canada. The ecology of such terrestrial vegetation and the formation of coal is studied by students in their second to fourth year courses. The study of the ecology of the Joggins fossil forest is being undertaken as a collaborative research project between Professor Andrew C. Scott of Royal Holloway with Dr. John Calder of the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Dr. Martin Gibling of Dalhousie University, Canada.