Researchers find unknown 300 million-year-old species of fern

Researchers from the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) have discovered a plant fossil in Anadia, in the district of Aveiro, which corresponds to a new species of fern 300 million years old. The extinct primitive fern, around 300 million years old, was discovered in the geological formations of Anadia by a team of researchers from the FCTUC Geosciences Centre (CGEO), the Faculty announced in a statement sent to Lusa news agency. “This palaeobotanical find corresponds to a new species of the genus Acitheca, a group of Maratilean arboreal ferns from the now extinct Psaroniaceae family of the Marattiales order, characterised by their elongated sporangia and sessile sori,” described CGEO researcher and first author of the scientific article, Pedro Correia.