Pteridophytic features in some Lower Carboniferous seed megaspores

Abstract

Some Lower Carboniferous seed megaspores have triradiate sutures–unequivocal evidence of their being arranged in a tetrahedral configuration. This type of tetrad arrangement is unknown in the ovules of modern gymnospermS. Some of the fossil tetrads consist of one large functional megaspore and three smaller abortive spores attached at the apex of the large one. All four spores have an exinous covering. Spores arranged in tetrahedral tetrads, and hence with triradiate sutures, are characteristic of many modern and fossil free-sporing pteridophyteS. In possessing this feature the fossil seed megaspores are more similar to the spores of these pteridophytes than to the megaspores of modern gymnosperms.