Walchia is a fossil conifer, cypress-like

Cupressaceae

The Cupressaceae or cypress family is a conifer family with worldwide distribution. The family includes 27 to 30 genera , which include the junipers and redwoods, with about 130-140 species in total. They are monoecious, subdioecious or dioecious trees and shrubs from 1-116 m tall...

 genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of Upper Pennsylvanian

Pennsylvanian

The Pennsylvanian is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the younger of two subperiods of the Carboniferous Period. It lasted from roughly . As with most other geochronologic units, the rock beds that define the Pennsylvanian are well identified, but the exact date of the start and end are uncertain...

 (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"...

) and lower Permian (about 310-290 Mya). It is found in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

; also North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. A forest of in-situ

In situ

In situ is a Latin phrase which translated literally as 'In position'. It is used in many different contexts.-Aerospace:In the aerospace industry, equipment on board aircraft must be tested in situ, or in place, to confirm everything functions properly as a system. Individually, each piece may...

 Walchia tree-stumps is located on the Northumberland Strait

Northumberland Strait

The Northumberland Strait is a strait in the southern part of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in eastern Canada...

 coast at Brule

Brule, Nova Scotia

Brule is a Canadian rural community located in Colchester County, Nova Scotia.Located on the Northumberland Strait 6 kilometres east of the village of Tatamagouche near the county boundary, the community is situated on the southern shore of Brule Harbour opposite Brule Point.-Fossils:Brule is...

, Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

.

Besides the Walchia forest, fallen tree trunks, and leaflet impressions, the forest, fossil-rich layer contains numerous, 4-legged, tetrapod

Tetrapod

Tetrapods are vertebrate animals having four limbs. Amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are all tetrapods; even snakes and other limbless reptiles and amphibians are tetrapods by descent. The earliest tetrapods evolved from the lobe-finned fishes in the Devonian...

 fossil trackway

Fossil trackway

A fossil trackway is a type of trace fossil, a trackway made by an organism. Many fossil trackways were made by dinosaurs, early tetrapods, and other quadrupeds and bipeds on land...

s.

Individual species

W. hypnoides: from the schists of Lodeve; also copper slates of the Zechstein in Mansfeld.

Monuran trackways

At the same time period of 290 mya, another species was making fossil trackways, now preserved in New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

; Walchia leaflets are found in the same fossil layers. The Monuran trackway

Monuran trackway

The Monuran trackway is a fossil trackway in the Robledo Mountains of New Mexico, produced by the extinct insect group called Monura, , from the Lower Permian. The monuran is a wingless jumping insect; thus the means of locomotion is jumping, then walking...

s were made by Permian

Permian

The PermianThe term "Permian" was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil; Murchison asserted in 1841 that he named his "Permian...

, wingless insects called monuran

Monura

Monura is an extinct order of wingless insects in the subclass Apterygota. They resembled their modern relatives, the bristletails, and had a single lengthy filament projecting from the end of the abdomen. They also had a pair of leg-like cerci and some non-ambulatory abdominal appendages. The...

s, (meaning "one-tail"); the insects' means of locomotion was hopping, then walking.

These 290 mya layers contain footprints of the large Dimetrodon

Dimetrodon

Dimetrodon was a predatory synapsid genus that flourished during the Permian period, living between 280–265 million years ago ....

, large/small raindrop impact marks, and also these fossil trackways of insects.

External links

General articles:

• Chemosystematic and microstructural investigations--(including Walchia)
• Book preview-(1854)--W. hypnoides discussion

Walchia Fossil examples:

• Graphic of W. piniformis branchlets, from James D. Dana, "Manual of Geology" http://www.geology.19thcenturyscience.org/books/1896-Dana-ManGeol/htm/doc-full.html
• Photo-High Res; Article – www.news.ucdavis.edu--"A Bumpy Shift from Icehouse to Greenhouse", Fossil from Smithsonian. Walchia went from the 'Uplands' to the lower basins-(floodplain forest region of Brule, Nova Scotia).
• Photo-High Res--4 cm width Leaflet-(Order Voltziales); Article – www.colby.edu-"Carboniferous Paleoecological Scenarios"

Walchia fossils, with Monuran trackways:

• "The Footfalls and Bellyflops of Permian Insects" – (from the Robledo Mountains
  Robledo Mountains
  The Robledo Mountains are a mountain range in Doña Ana County, New Mexico just northwest of Las Cruces. The range was named for Pedro Robledo, who died on May 21, 1598 and was buried nearby. Robledo was the first casualty of the Oñate expedition to colonize the upper Rio Grande valley...
  
  of New Mexico)