PL1599 - PREHISTORIC PERMIAN GIANT TREE FERN PECOPTERIS FOSSIL FROM FAMOUS CLOSED SITE IN GERMANY

Product Description

ID

Pecopteris sp.

FOUND

Bad Sobernheim, Rhineland
 - Pfalz, Germany

AGE

PERMIAN:  290 million years ago

SIZE

9.25" x 8.25" overall

CONDITION

SINGLE FRACTURE REPAIR,
 NO RESTORATION

NOTE

SITE LONG SINCE CLOSED
AND PROTECTED.  A FOSSIL PLANT
FROM BEFORE THE DINOSAURS!

INCLUDES STAND - Actual Item - One Only

Comes with a certificate of
authenticity / information sheet

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PLANT FOSSILS

SPECIAL NOTE:  The current laws in this region of Germany have forbid the collection of fossils since 1986 with this quarry specifically, being closed and protected by state law.  Legislation has permanently ended the hope of ever securing any new specimens as this one being offered here.  This incredible piece comes from an old German private collection and was collected long ago before the ban was enacted.  

This is a beautiful portion of a fossilized giant tree fern branch from the fern Pecopteris sp..  Pecopteris was a prehistoric giant tree fern that on average, grew to a height of around 13 feet.  A photograph at the bottom of this page demonstrates what this tree fern might have looked like nearly 300 million years ago, before the first dinosaurs.  The color is natural and the impression has only been highlighted with a clear sealer.  The detail of the individual frond leaves is impeccable.  The quarry is privately owned but under a state ban for any private collecting so only pieces like this from old European collections, can be acquired.  100% ORIGINAL with NO RESTORATION. 

Ferns comprise a large group of plants that have a fossil record dating back to the Carboniferous Period, 360 million years ago.  During this time, they were the dominant vegetation on the planet.  About half of the fern foliage in the Carboniferous developed seeds versus conventional reproduction by spores, leading to the term "seed fern".  Many modern families of ferns living today did not appear until the late Cretaceous Period. 

The leaves of ferns are called fronds and each frond is made up of leaflets.  Ferns typically reproduce by the generation of dust-like, single cell spores which are generated from the fern sporangia structures.  These spores act like seeds and in an ideal situation, fall to ground and begin to multiply with the right amount of light and moisture.  Eventually, these tiny growths become a separate fern. 

In the Silurian Period, plants needed to make the cross-over from water to land so they developed ways in which to extract nutrients and water from the Earth.  They developed an epidermis to slow down the loss of water and pores called stomata by which an exchange or gas could occur.  By the Devonian Period, some plants had developed these characteristics leading to becoming the first land plants.  At this time, five classes of plants had emerged - Psilotopsida , Trimerophytopsida, Zosterophyllopsida, Lycopdiopsida, and Equisetopsida.  Ferns and fern allies, as we know them today, arose from these early plants.