"Did you ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible!"
Posted on 06/14/2007 10:02:32 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
William Stein, associate professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University... and his colleagues offer new insights into the world's oldest trees found in an area cited as home to the Earth's oldest forest. Located near the Gilboa Dam in Schoharie County, NY, the region has yielded tremendous tree trunks from the Devonian era, meaning they're roughly 380 million years old. These trunks have been studied by paleobotanists for about a century, but scientists could only guess what the tops of the trees looked like... The fossil, more than 12 feet long, offered the first evidence of how big and complex the trees were and what their tops, or "aerial portions," looked like... Nearby, a second 19-foot-long fossil reinforced some of the data offered by the first.
(Excerpt) Read more at newswise.com ...
"Did you ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible!"
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I knew that tree was going to be here a long time, because it had a really big trunk...
Oh, sure, now you tell me. ;’) Of course, that story better frames the political axes being ground.
Removing Eospermatopteris stump from Riverside Quarry, Gilboa, N.Y.
I have a Sciadopitys verticillata in my yard. It’s a living fossil like a Gingko Biloba.
When my friends with small children come over I tell them that I have a dinosaur living in the backyard and show them the tree.
It is the sole member of the family Sciadopityaceae and genus Sciadopitys, a living fossil with no close relatives, and known in the fossil record for about 230 million years.
I bought it because it looks cool and my wife hates Gingkos.
“my wife hates Gingkos”
and pretty soon, she’ll be saying they should have their own schools...
;’)
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