Orestovia

Orestovia is a lower[2]-middle Devonian[1] thallophyte known from fossilised cuticle, cutinite. Described as an enigmatic taxa, Orestovia has variously been categorised as a brown algae, an algae of unknown affinities, a thalloid non-vascular plant, and an early vascular plant, or even the result of the alternation of generations of some other group.[2]

Orestovia
Temporal range:
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: incertae sedis
Genus: Orestovia
Species
  • O. devonica Ergolskaya, (type) 1936
  • O. petzii
  • O. voronejiensis

Orestovia are typically found as paper coals. Individual remains are naked, unbranched, cutinised axes up to 20 cm in length and 2 cm wide, tapering distally.[3] Most specimens are preserved as hollow, cuticular sheaths that often exhibit an epidermis-like cellular pattern.[3] The cuticles bear structures which have been described as representing stomata.[4] Spores are sometimes preserved between its layers of cuticle.[2] A reconstruction looks similar to the extant fern Pilularia globulifera (Marsileaceae) in the water with a creeping rhizome and naked, upright axes.[3]

Orestovia remains have been documented from the following locations, In Russia: Pavlovsk, Voronezh Oblast,[2] Graham Bell Island, Arctic Ocean[5] and the Kuznetsk Basin, Siberia.[4] In China: Luquan, Yunnan.[6]

References
  1. Snigirevskaya, N.S.; Nadler, Y.S. (1994), "Habitat and Relationships of Orestovia (middle Devonian).", Palaeontographica Abteilung B, 233: 11
  2. Krassilov, V. (1981). "Orestovia and the origin of vascular plants". Lethaia. 14 (3): 235–250. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1981.tb01693.x.
  3. Krings, Thomas N. Taylor, Edith L. Taylor, Michael (2009). Paleobotany : the biology and evolution of fossil plants (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Academic Press. pp. 186. ISBN 9780123739728.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Gensel, P.G.; Johnson, N.G. (1994), "… the cuticular structure and stomatal organization of Orestovia sp. Cf. O. Petzii from the Kuznetsk …", Palaeontographica Abteilung B, 233
  5. Volkova, I. B.; Bekh-Ivanov, D. E.; Sidorova I. N. (2001). "New Find of Cuticular Coal in the Franz Josef Land". Lithology and Mineral Resources. 36 (2): 187–190. doi:10.1023/A:1004834703202. S2CID 126869892.
  6. Dawei, Sun; Wang Yi; Xu Honghe; Fu Qiang (2007). "Restudy On The Cuticles Of Late Middle Devonian Coal From Luquan, Yunnan, China". Acta Palaeontologica Sinica. 46 (3): 355–364. Retrieved 13 April 2012.


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