Rhynia

Rhynia gwynne - vaughanii, reconstruction

Rhynie Chert ( Aberdeenshire )

Rhynia is the name of a 400 million year old fossil plant, which was widespread in the Lower Devonian world. It was named after the Scottish village of Rhynie ( Aberdeenshire ), where it was first discovered in the 1910s in a silicified peat soil ( chert ). In 1917 they were scientifically described as Rhynia gwynne - vaughanii. One also found in the Rhynie plant fossil was first referred to as Rhynia major, but not later found in the genus Rhynia due to some differences and renamed Aglaophyton major.

The main axis of the plant was as rhizome horizontally in the ground. The walls of the aqueduct competent cells ( tracheids ) showed helical and annular reinforcements. In Aglaophyton these reinforcements are missing. Above ground, the shoots were regularly dichotomously branched (that is evenly forked ) with terminal sporangium. The shoots are therefore often interpreted as sporophytes and were up to 50 cm high tower. About the generation of the plant but nothing definite is known. The diameter of the shoot was a little more than 5 mm, sheets were not available.

Rhynia applies not only Horneophyton as the oldest known up to now land plant. It is therefore led since the formulation of the telome theory by Walter Zimmermann in any paleontological manual as a model for the so-called Urlandpflanzen from which all later developed cormophytes.