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Palaeobotany

A tree without leaves

Nature volume 446, pages 861–862 (2007)Cite this article

The puzzle presented by the famous stumps of Gilboa, New York, finds a solution in the discovery of two fossil specimens that allow the entire structure of these early trees to be reconstructed.

Since the discovery of these Eospermatopteris stumps in the nineteenth century, questions about their relationships to other plants and what kind of trees they supported have exercised generations of palaeobotanists. Evidence presented by Stein et al.1 on page 904 of this issue not only answers these questions but also provides a new glimpse of the requirements necessary to make a tree.

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Figure 1: An enigmatic stump.

JESSE EARL HYDE COLL., CASE WESTERN RES. UNIV., DEPT GEOL. SCI.

Figure 2: Two types of Devonian tree.
Figure 3: Trees in time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud (CNRS) and Anne-Laure Decombeix (Université Montpellier 2) are in the Unité Mixte de Recherche Botanique et Bioinformatique de l'Architecture des Plantes (AMAP), CIRAD, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France. meyerberthaud@cirad.fr; anne-laure.decombeix@cirad.fr,

    Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud & Anne-Laure Decombeix

  2. anne-laure.decombeix@cirad.fr,

    Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud & Anne-Laure Decombeix

Authors
  1. Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud
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  2. Anne-Laure Decombeix
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Meyer-Berthaud, B., Decombeix, AL. A tree without leaves. Nature 446, 861–862 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/446861a

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