Lycopodiophyta is profiled at clade level, while Asteroxylon mackiei is used only as a species-level anatomical exemplar and not as a direct ancestor.
claim:taxon:lycophyta:taxonomyLycopodiophyta
The profile uses Asteroxylon mackiei as a specimen-level exemplar of early lycopsid rooting architecture and does not project that anatomy onto every lycophyte.
Represented range425–Present Ma
Content packageearly-land-plants
PBDBtxn:249949
Evidence boundary
Automated checks cover structure, identifiers, translations and links only; maintainer and external expert review are not complete.
Claim ledger
The Rhynie-chert exemplar comes from Scotland; it does not define the global distribution or origin centre of Lycopodiophyta.
claim:taxon:lycophyta:biogeographyAsteroxylon’s rooting architecture supports terrestrial anchorage and uptake in that plant, but habitat and growth form vary widely across living and fossil lycophytes.
claim:taxon:lycophyta:ecologyThree-dimensional reconstruction distinguishes leafy shoot, root-bearing and rooting axes in Asteroxylon, with rooting axes arising at anisotomous branch points.
claim:taxon:lycophyta:morphologyThe 425–0 Ma atlas envelope remains a rounded clade navigation range; the cited 407 Ma Asteroxylon anatomy does not by itself establish a global lycophyte FAD.
claim:taxon:lycophyta:fossil-rangeKnown limits
- A missing branch or fossil occurrence does not imply biological absence. Internal nodes are not calibrated divergence estimates.
References
- An evidence-based 3D reconstruction of Asteroxylon mackiei, the most complex plant preserved from the Rhynie chertHetherington, A.J.; Bridson, S.L.; Jones, A.L.; Hass, H.; Kerp, H.; Dolan, L. · 2021 · DOI 10.7554/eLife.69447
- Open Tree of Life web servicesOpenTreeOfLife Project
- The Paleobiology Database application programming interfacePeters, S.E.; McClennen, M. · 2016 · DOI 10.1017/pab.2015.39
- Denormalized occurrence and taxon tables of the Paleobiology DatabaseThe Paleobiology Database Community; Kocsis, Á.T. · 2026 · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21620933