10 Extinct Plants With a Fascinating History

Araucarioxylon arizonicum

Browse Petrified Forest National Park, and you might see remains from 200 to 250 million people Araucarioxylon arizonicum Trees that prospered during the Triassic period. Some are even kept as petroglyphs, sculpted by natives living in the region 8,000 years ago.

Today, the National Park is located in the counties of Navajo and Apache northeast of Arizona. Other trees of Araucaria The genre still exists in the world – the most famous of them being the pine of the island of Norfolk.

Triplex tularensis

Known by the common name Tulare Saltbush or Bakersfield Saltbush, Triplex tularensis was seen for the last time in 1991. It was an annual herb that grew up in alkaline pans at the southern end of the Central California valley until it is driven by the expansion of agriculture.

While the central valley became a world leader in agriculture, farmers and communities drained the interior lakes and caught deep underground aquifers faster than mountain runoff could fill it, depriving Triplex tularensis water.

Calamites

Calamites have disappeared from the permian era approximately 250 million years ago, but the other members of the Squetail gender (Acetum) Always grow in the swamps of the world. Like modern horsetails, Calamites Growed in filled from underground rampant rhizomes, sending hollow, ribbed and bamboo trunks that went to 100-160 feet (30-50 m).

Flourishing during the carboniferous period, when the land masses of the earth were all connected as a pangea, Calamity Fossils can be found on all continents.

Cooksonia

Cooksonia –The first known vascular plant, which means that its tissues have led water, sap and nutrients – dates back approximately 425 million years. Like other early plants to evolve from green algae, Cooksonia lacked leaves. The way he has photosynthesized the energy of the sun is always the subject of a scientific debate.

The stems on Cooksonia what are made him revolutionary. With water conductive stems, Cooksonia It was no longer necessary to stay overwhelmed in water. He could colonize dry lands and pave the way for animals to emerge from the sea later.

Franklinia Alatamaha

Franklinia Alatamaha has been turned off in nature since the beginning of the 19th century and has only existed from culture. Originally from the southeast of the United States, he was first known to non-native Americans when he was identified in 1765.

Named after Benjamin Franklin, the tree only survived him by 13 years, after being seen for the last time in nature in 1803. Already rare at the end of the 18th century, the reasons for his extinction are not known. Today, cultivated specimens only exist because the tree was lucky to have flowers that liked the human eye.

Glossopter

Glossopter is one of the few stories of success for the unfortunate Terra nova Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott, who froze to death in Antarctica with his crew. When their bodies were discovered later, the fossils of 270 million million people they had collected were brought back to London. Glossopter was identified, proving that Antarctica was once attached to other continents and covered with vegetable life, confirming the theory of plates tectonics.

Glossopter is an early gymnosperm, a tree producing seeds whose descendants include conifers and cycades.

Nesiota Elliptica (St. Helena Olive)

You might think that one of the most remote islands in the world, Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean (where Napoleon was formerly exiled) would be a safe place for native plants. But the arrival of the Portuguese in 1502 led to the extinction of many native plants from Sainte-Hélène, due to the deforestation and the introduction of goats. The last tree remaining kept alive in culture died in 2003.

Orbexilum stipulatum

Better known as leather root or scurfpea falsification, Orbexilum stipulatum was from Rock Island, Kentucky, and was seen for the last time in 1881. The factory was based on the pasture of Buffalo, which once traversed the Ohio River Valley. Overcoundability has driven out the buffalo out of the region and with it Orbexilum stipulatum. A dam built on the site overwhelmed Rock Island, leaving the hopes of the plant survival.

Sigillary

Sigillary is one of the most common types of plants from which fossil fuels are made. Resembling Joshua trees or something from a book by Dr Seuss, Sigillary Prospered during the carboniferous (or coal) period 300 to 360 million years ago.

The tree-shaped plants have risen above the ground of peat swamps, reproducing by spores contained in cones at the ends of their branches. Their fossils were discovered during coal extraction operations around the world, from western Pennsylvania to interior Mongolia.

Sophora Toromiro

The Toromiro tree (Sophora Toromiro) was formerly endemic to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), but despite the efforts to cultivate it from seeds collected in the 1960s, the tree has since been declared in nature. The origins and meaning of the famous monumental statues of Easter Island remain mysteries, but also the reasons for the deforestation of the island.

A combination of changes, climate change and cultural developments seem to be reasons related to the collapse of a formerly sustainable society. Whatever the reason and the pace of change, the haunting lesson of Easter island remains the same.