Ancient Species

Lycophytes

Lycophytes are the oldest type of "vascular" plant, that is with veins in the leaf. In lycophytes (unlike other plants), there is a single vein with no branches.

Lycophytes first appeared early in the Devonian Period. (about 400 million years ago). 

Present day lycophytes are the small, inconspicuous club mosses but in the Carboniferous Period (345 to 288 million years ago) they were 35 meter tall "scale trees" which formed forests which dominated many areas for 40 million years. Scale trees are common fossils and a significant constituent of coal.

Scale trees were wiped out in the "great extinction" at the end of the Permian Period (about 248 million years ago).