Luc Cornet, Philippe Gerrienne, Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud, and Cyrille Prestianni (2012)
A Middle Devonian Callixylon (Archaeopteridales) from Ronquières, Belgium
Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 183:1-8.
A permineralized Callixylon trunk is reported from Ronquières, a mid to late Givetian (Middle Devonian)
locality from Belgium. The specimen consists of an 80 cm long trunk adpression whose central area is preserved
as a pyrite permineralization. The pyritized area is composed of a eustele surrounded by secondary
xylem. Tracheids show radially aligned groups of pits separated by unpitted regions on the radial walls of
tracheids. The specimen belongs to a group of species characterized by a predominance of uniseriate rays
and the lack of ray tracheids. This Callixylon specimen is one of the earliest representatives of the genus. It
coexists at the locality with large cladoxylopsids and provides direct evidence that the tree habit had evolved
in the archaeopteridalean progymnosperms by the Givetian.
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