Artinskian Age

What happened during this time?

Biological

Flora, spore-bearing

• Scale trees, such as Sigillaria, are still around but decreasing in prominence

• Extant clubmoss groups, such as the Lycopodiales and Selaginellales are found in the understory of some forests

• Marattialean tree ferns and smaller zygopterid ferns still exist, but becoming less prominent

• Sphenophyllophytes are found in the under-story, and horsetails along rivers and wetlands

• True ferns are beginning to appear on the landscape

• Noeggerathian progymnosperms are still present, but not as dominant as before

Flora, seed-bearing

• Cordaites start to dominate in Euramerica

• Glossopterids start to dominate in Gondwana

• Cycads may have been present, but there is debate on the earliest known member of this group

• Giganopterids were among the most striking and important plants of the Cathaysian flora of Sino-Malaya (Wang 1999)

• Seed ferns, such as the medullosids, callistophytes, and peltasperms were still on the landscape; the former becoming much less prominent