An herbaceous fossil conifer: Gymnospermous ruderals in the evolution of Mesozoic vegetation

Fast growing conifers have been recognized in disturbed habitats of the transitional Lower Middle Triassic Grès à Voltzia delta from the Buntsandstein in eastern France. These herbaceous conifer fossils reveal that some Mesozoic seed plants were capable of opportunistic growth and rapid prolific reproduction long before the origin of flowering plants. Such ruderals indicate that certain gymnosperms came to characterize river terrace floras by the evolution of reduced size and enhanced reproductive allocation, while others dispersed to dominate more arid expanses of the Mesozoic landscape before the rise of flowering plants. The widespread occurrence and quantitative distribution patterns of pollen similar to that of Aethophyllum in the Middle Triassic suggests that Aethophyllum and related conifers may have played an important role in the evolution of distinctive Mesozoic wetland communities.