Abstract

The coal-bearing lower Clackmannan Group of Scotland has yielded diverse fossil floras of Serpukhovian (late Mississippian) age dominated by arborescent lycopsids, equisetopsids, ferns and lyginopteridalean pteridosperms. Similar macrofloras of the same age have been reported from coal-bearing deposits of Maine-et-Loire (NW France) and Upper Silesia (Czech Republic and Poland). These fossil floras together reflect the earliest development of the coal swamp biome in tropical Euramerica. The biome appeared on newly-exposed areas of coastal plain that formed as result of lowered sea-levels during the first major cooling phase of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age. A new combination Artisophyton chalmersii is proposed based on Megaphyton chalmersii Goodlet.

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