A rare fossil of an extinct primitive plant that existed around 300 million years ago has been discovered in the Bussaco region, in central Portugal, by a researcher from the University of Coimbra (UC), the institution announced today. In a statement sent to the Lusa news agency, UC said that Pedro Correia, a researcher at the Geosciences Centre of the Earth Sciences Department of the Faculty of Science and Technology, “found a fossil strobilus of a new genus and new species of extinct articulated plant”, scientifically called “Sphenophyllales, Polypodiopsida”. The study, led by Pedro Correia and carried out in collaboration with Artur Sá, a researcher at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), has made it possible to find out “how these primitive plants evolved and adapted in changing tropical environments during the end of a glaciation at the end of the Carboniferous period”.
300 million year old fossil of extinct plant found in centre region
There it was, waiting to be found through so many millenia, in a rock by the side of a road. Photo: University of Coimbra
