c
  is an extinct grouping of primitive land plants.

The earliest c
  date from the

middle Silurian, about 425 million years ago;[1] the group continues to be an important
component of the flora until the early Devonian. For historical reasons, while c
  fossils
are distributed globally, most type specimens come from Britain.

Morphology
Only the sporophyte phase of c
  is currently known. Individuals were small, a few
centimetres tall, and had a simple structure; they lacked leaves, flowers and roots ² although it
has been speculated that they grew from an unpreserved rhizome.[2] They had a simple stalk,
that branched dichotomously a few times. Each branch ended in a sporangium, a rounded,
spore-bearing structure. Specimens of one species of c
  have a dark stripe in the
centre of their stalks, which has been interpreted as the earliest remains of water carrying
tissue.[3]Other c
  species lacked such conducting tissue.
?

u


  was the sporophyte[2] generation of a vascular, axial, free-
sporing diplohaplonticembryophytic land plant of the Lower Devonian that
had anatomical features more advanced than those of thebryophytes, and was basal to
modern vascular plants or eutracheophytes.

u
  was first described as a new species by Kidston and Lang in 1917.[3] The
species is known only from the Rhyniechert in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where it grew in the
vicinity of a silica-rich hot spring. u was a vascular plant, and grew in association with
other vascular plants such as
  
, a probable ancestor of
modern clubmosses (Lycopsida), and with pre-vascular plants such as
  
 ,
which is interpreted as basal to true vascular plants.[4]

u is thought to have had deciduous lateral branches, which it used to disperse laterally
over the substrate[5][6] and stands of the plant may therefore have been clonal populations.

Evidence of the gametophyte generation of u has been described in the form of crowded
tufts of diminutive stems only a few mm in height, with the form genus
name u   .[7] Like those
of
  
 ,[8][9]    
[10] and  
[11]the gametophytes
of u are dioicous, bearing male and femalegametangia (antheridia and archegonia) on
different axes. A significant finding is that the axes were vascular, unlike almost all of the
gametophytes of modern pteridophytes except for that of Psilotum.[12]
? ?
è
    is an extinct genus of tree-like plants with fern-like leaves. A
useful index fossil, this tree is found instrata dating from the Upper Devonian to
Lower Carboniferous, and has a global distribution.

Until the 2007 discovery of å, many scientists considered

  to be
the earliest known tree. Bearing buds, reinforced branch joints, and branched trunks
similar to today's timber, it is more reminiscent of modern seed-bearing trees than other
spore bearing taxa; It combines characteristics of woody trees andherbaceous ferns,
and belongs to a group of extinct plants sometimes called the progymnosperms, plants
with gymnosperm-like wood but that produce spores rather than seeds.

Anatomy
The trees of this genus were small to medium in size with leafy foliage reminiscent of
some conifers. The largefronds were thickly set with fan-shaped leaflets on stems that
inclined sharply upward. They typically grew to 10 m in height. Some species are large,
with trunks that exceeded 1.5 m in diameter. The veining branches diverged
dichotomously. There was also intermediate feathering at each frond node or axes.

Leafy shoots occurred in opposite arrangement in a single plane. The leaflets, or

pinnules, overlapped one another and were subcircular to wedge-shaped. On fertile
branches, the leaves were replaced by spore capsules.
?

å  was a genus of prehistoric trees that existed in the mid-Devonian that
belong to the cladoxylopsids, close relatives of the modern ferns and horsetails. The
2007 discovery in Schoharie County, New York, of fossils from the Middle
Devonian (about 385 million years ago) united the crown of å to a root and trunk
known since 1870, the fossilized grove of "Gilboa stumps" discovered at Gilboa, New
York, which had been previously described as   , though the
complete plant remained unknown. These fossils have been described as the earliest
known trees, standing 8 m (34 ft) or more tall, resembling the unrelated modern tree
fern.[1]

å had fronds rather than leaves,[2] and reproduced with spores.[1]
? ?
M
  is a genus of extinct, spore-bearing, arborescent (tree-like) plants which flourished in
the LateCarboniferous period but dwindled to extinction in the early Permian period. It was
a lycopodiophyte, and is related to the lycopsids, or club-mosses, but even more closely
to quillworts, as was its associateΠ .  was a tree-like plant, with a tall,
occasionally forked trunk that lacked wood. Support came from a layer of closely packed leaf
bases just below the surface of the trunk, while the center was filled with pith. The old leaf bases
expanded as the trunk grew in width, and left a diamond-shaped pattern, which is evident in
fossils. The trunk had photosynthetic tissue on the surface, meaning that it was probably green.

The trunk was topped with a plume of long, grass-like, microphyllous leaves, so that the plant
looked somewhat like a tall, forked bottlebrush. The plant bore its spores (not seeds) in cone-
like structures attached to the stem. , like many ancient lycopods, had a relatively short
life cycle - growing rapidly and reaching maturity in a few years.

Some[ ]
have suggested that  was monocarpic, meaning that it died after
reproduction, though this is not proven. It was associated with Π , the scale tree, in
the Carboniferous coal swamps.
?

c  is a genus of extinct arborescent (tree-like) horsetails to which the

modern horsetails(genus   ) are closely related. Unlike their herbaceous modern
cousins, these plants were medium-sized trees, growing to heights of more than 30 meters
(100 feet). They were components of the understories of coal swamps of
the Carboniferous period.

Taphonomy
A number of organ taxa have been identified as part of a united organism, which has inherited
the namec in popular culture. c correctly refers only to casts of the stem of
Carboniferous/Permian sphenophytes, and as such is a form genus of little taxonomic value.
There are two forms of casts, which can give mistaken impressions of the organisms. The most
common is an internal cast of the hollow (or pith-filled) void in the centre of the trunk. This can
cause some confusion: firstly, it must be remembered that a fossil was probably surrounded
with 4-5 times its width in (unpreserved) vascular tissue, so the organisms were much wider
than the internal casts preserved. Further, the fossil gets narrower as it attaches to a rhizoid, a
place where one would expect there to be the highest concentration of vascular tissue (as this is
where the peak transport occurs). However, because the fossil is a cast, the narrowing in fact
represents a constriction of the , into which vascular tubes encroach as they widen.
? ?
c   is an important genus of extinct gymnosperms which grew on wet ground
similar to the Everglades inFlorida. Brackish water mussels and crustacea are found
frequently between the roots of these trees. The fossils are found in rock sections from
the Upper Carboniferous of the Dutch - Belgian - German coal area. A number of many
noteworthy types from this line are:

â c 

â c    (named after Ludlow, a coal area in England)
In contrast to many other plant varieties, Cordaites seeds are not rare, because they are
rather large (up to 10mm); those seeds are named Cordaicarpus.
?

A     (Greek   (ȖȜȫııĮ), meaning "tongue", because the leaves were

tongue-shaped) is the largest and best-known genus of the extinct order of seed
ferns known as Glossopteridales (or in some cases as Arberiales or Dictyopteridiales).

History
The Glossopteridales arose around the beginning of the Permian on the great southern
continent ofGondwana. These plants went on to become the dominant elements of the
southern flora through the rest of the Permian but disappeared in almost all places at
the end of the Permian. The only convincing Triassic records are very earliest Triassic
leaves from Nidpur in India, but even these records are somewhat questionable owing
to faulting and complex juxtapositioning of Permian and Triassic strata at Nidpur.
Although most modern palaeobotany textbooks cite the continuation of glossopterids
into later parts of the Triassic and, in some cases into the Jurassic, these ranges are
erroneous and are based on misidentification of morphologically similar leaves such
as   ,  , or   . Glossopterids were, therefore, one of the
major casualties of the end-Permian mass-extinction event
?

?
 
?
? ?

The c 
(ƒ 

) also known as c  is an extinct plant species
from the violet genus Viola which was endemic to the
French Department Yonne. ƒ  was discovered in 1860 but first described in
1878.

[edit]Description

This biennial or perennial herb was not higher than 12 cm and had a glabrous stem.
The light green leaves were thick and fleshy. The stipule was cut and had an entire
central lobe. The relatively large flowers were zygomorphic. The petalswere light violet.
The spur was with six to seven millimetres larger than the calyx. The flowering period
was from May to June.

[edit]Extinction

The Cry Violet occurred in strongly restricted limestone outcrops in the region
of Cry southeast of Tonnerre in the French department Yonne. Due to the habitat
destruction because of the limestone quarrying and due to overexploitation by plant
collectors it was thought to be extinct in the wild by 1930.[1] This plant might have
survived in cultivation until 1950

è    is a species of legume in the Fabaceae family. It is endemic

to Cartagena, southeast ofSpain.

Its natural habitat is Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation. This plant was first described in
1909, and was believed to be extinct.

In 2004, a group of 46 specimens were discovered in a protected area between Cartagena

and Mazarrón and plans for the conservation of this species have been implemented.

Most of the individuals are preserved in a protected area called "CabezosdelPericón", a Site of
Community Importance included in the Natura 2000 ecological network.
? ?
 AFRICA
The 
 (c    ) is a species of tree endemic
to the island of Saint Helena. It was thought to be extinct, but one last tree was
discovered in Horse Pasture in 1982. This tree, long believed to be the last, was
destroyed in 1986 by a gale. Fortunately seedlings were grown from this tree before it
perished. The last of these to survive in cultivation was damaged by gales in 2008 and
the survival of the species was in doubt.

In December 2009, Lourens Malan, a horticulturist working for the island's conservation
department under the Critical Species Recovery Project, discovered a wild tree growing
on a cliff. A local team of botanists, conservationists and volunteers commenced an
intensive programme of hand pollination and seed collection of the remaining cultivated
tree, while protecting it from insects that may cross-pollinate with nearby false
gumwoods. Successful fertilisation will occur only if any grains of pollen happen to
have mutations that will suppress the tree's mechanisms for preventing self-pollination.

With funding from DEFRA an intensive propogation and nursery programme has
demonstrated that a low percentage (0.2%) of viable seed can be generated by this
method and to date (Oct 2010) 250 seedlings have been grown for the recovery of the
species.[1]

å c (  ) is a cycad in the genus  , and

is endemic to the Ongoye Forest of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is one of the rarest
plants in the world, being extinct in the wild with allspecimens being clones of
the type.[2] The specific and common name both honour John Medley Wood, curator of
the Durban Botanic Garden and director of the Natal Government Herbarium of South
Africa, who discovered the specimen in 1895

Description
It is palm tree like, and can reach a height of 6 metres (20 ft). The trunk is about 30±50
centimetres (12±20 in) in diameter, thickest at the bottom, and topped by a crown of 50±
150 leaves. The leaves are glossy and dark green, 150±250 centimetres (59±98 in) in
length, and keeled with 70±150 leaflets, the leaflets falcate (sickle-shaped), 13±15
centimetres (5±6 in) long and 20±30 millimetres (0.8±1 in) broad.[4][5]
?