Eifelian Stage

What happened during this time?

• Fossil assemblages during this time are poor

• Most of Earth was cool and dry, but a narrow band around the equator was tropical

  • Plant fossils from the Eifelian are usually from this equatorial area

• Land plants spread inland for the first time

• Evidence for large, deeply penetrating root systems extending up to 1 meter into the substrate (Meyer-Berthaud et al. 1999, Driese et al. 1997, Retallack 1997)

• The protolepidodendrids are appearing larger on the landscape

• The dispersed spore Acinosporites macrospinosus (Richardson 1965) is found in the Middle Devonian (Wellman 2022)

  • It has a typical lycopsid spore wall ultrastructure 

  • A. macrospinosus is probably an incipient megaspore from among the first groups of lycopsids to have experimented with a heterosporous reproductive strategy.

  • The apical prominence of A. macrospinosus is a forerunner of the pronounced apical prominences (gulas and massas) of later megaspores

• The cladoxylopsids are also getting larger with complicated anatomy, found in Calamophyton