Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Bringing images of ancient plants to life

Denyse O'Leary
April 15, 2014
Intelligent Design, Plants, stasis
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400 mya plant/U Cal Berkeley

From ScienceDaily:

Benca described this 400-million-year-old fossil lycopod, Leclercqia scolopendra, and created a life-like computer rendering. The stem of the lycopod is about 2.5 millimeters across.

File:Lycopodium plant.jpg
club moss ( Lycopodiella cernua)/Eric Guinther

Examples of the lycopod or club moss abound today:

Called Leclercqia scolopendra, or centipede clubmoss, the plant lived during the “age of fishes,” the Devonian Period. At that time, lycopods — the group Leclercqia belonged to — were one of few plant lineages with leaves. Leclercqia shoots were about a quarter-inch in diameter and probably formed prickly, scrambling, ground-covering mats. The function of Leclercqia’s hook-like leaf tips is unclear, Benca said, but they may have been used to clamber over larger plants. Today, lycopods are represented by a group of inconspicuous plants called club mosses, quillworts and spikemosses.

They may be “inconspicuous” but they are certainly a durable group. They used to be forests.

File:A small cup of coffee.JPG

Note: Is it correct to refer to a computer animation of a plant?

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Note: Sometimes in nature nothing is what it seems: That thing below isn’t a flower and the thing hanging off it isn’t a stick:

Comments
Failed Darwinian Predictions About Insects and Flowers - Casey Luskin - April 16, 2014 Excerpt: "the surprise is that insects at the family level were off and running well before the flowering plants made their debut." Dr. Leo J. Hickey, a paleobotanist at Yale University, said: "The results call into serious question some of our conceptions and preconceptions. All of us were quite comfortable with the idea that flowering plants must have had a major effect on insect diversity." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/04/cosmos_episode_1084501.htmlbornagain77
April 17, 2014
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Note: Sometimes in nature nothing is what it seems: That thing below isn’t a flower and the thing hanging off it isn’t a stick
Wow!Dionisio
April 15, 2014
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Is it correct to refer to a computer animation of a plant?
Good question. In order to visually illustrate the molecular and cellular processes within the plants, computer animations and graphical simulations should be pretty helpful, if they are complemented with audio or text descriptions the details shown in the video.Dionisio
April 15, 2014
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They may be “inconspicuous” but they are certainly a durable group. They used to be forests.
Wow!
forest-forming trees more than 35 meters tall
Dionisio
April 15, 2014
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