The world’s first tree

The 19th March issue of Nature detailed how the world’s first tree looked like. It’s surprisingly big!

The earth’s oldest known tree is 385 million years old, was nearly 10m (30 feet) tall & looked like a modern palm.

It was discovered as a stump among hundreds more than 100 years ago by chance, when a flash flood in Gilboa, New York uncovered it.

Little was known about the tree’s actual appearance, but in 2004 scientists unearthed a fossilized top (crown) of the same genus nearby. Later, they discovered fragments of a trunk.

With knowledge about stump, trunk and crown gleaned, it can now be revealed what the full tree looked like:

The tree belonged to Wattieza, a group of early fern-like plants. It used spores to reproduce as opposed to seeds. Wattieza is now extinct.

It lived during the Middle Devonian period, before aquatic creatures clambered to land, and 140 million years before the dinosaurs appeared. That means there were nothing flying, no reptiles, no amphibians roaming at that time.

The appearance of land plants like Wattieza drastically changed the climate. It made it possible for land-based animals and insects to appear, because forests removed a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, causing temperatures to drop.

Source:
livescience.com

Popularity: 2% [?]