Stigmaria
Encyclopedia
Stigmaria are a type of branching tree root fossil found in Carboniferous
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
rocks. They were the roots of coal forest
Coal forest
Coal forests were the vast swathes of wetlands that extended over much of the tropical land areas during late Carboniferous and Permian times. These forests got their name because they accumulated enormous deposits of peat which later changed into coal...
lycopsid trees such as Sigillaria
Sigillaria
Sigillaria is a genus of extinct, spore-bearing, arborescent plants which flourished in the Late Carboniferous 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...
and Lepidodendron
Lepidodendron
Lepidodendron is an extinct genus of primitive, vascular, arborescent plant related to the Lycopsids . It was part of the coal forest flora. They sometimes reached heights of over , and the trunks were often over in diameter, and thrived during the Carboniferous period...
. Each trunk tended to have four of those roots. Stigmaria is a form taxon, as the genus and species of the plant bearing the root is not identified.