Walchia

Extinct genus of conifers

Walchia Temporal range: ~310–290 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N

Walchia piniformis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pinophyta
Class:	Pinopsida
Order:	Voltziales
Genus:	Walchia
Species
Walchia garnettensis Walchia hypnoides Walchia piniformis

Walchia is a primitive fossil conifer found in upper Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) and lower Permian (about 310-290 Mya) rocks of Europe and North America. A forest of in-situ Walchia tree-stumps is located on the Northumberland Strait coast at Brule, Nova Scotia.

Besides the Walchia forest, fallen tree trunks, and leaflet impressions, the forest, fossil-rich layer contains numerous, 4-legged, tetrapod fossil trackways.

Individual species

W. hypnoides: from the schists of Lodeve; also copper slates of the Zechstein in Mansfeld.

Monuran trackways

At the same time period of 290 mya, another species was making fossil trackways, now preserved in New Mexico; Walchia leaflets are found in the same fossil layers. The Monuran trackways were made by Permian, wingless insects called monurans, (meaning "one-tail"); the insects' means of locomotion was hopping, then walking.

These 290 mya layers contain footprints of the large Dimetrodon, large/small raindrop impact marks, and also these fossil trackways of insects.

References

External links

General articles

Chemosystematic and microstructural investigations--(including Walchia)
Book preview-(1854)--W. hypnoides discussion

Walchia Fossil examples

Graphic of W. piniformis branchlets, from James D. Dana, "Manual of Geology" [1]
Photo-High Res; Article – www.news.ucdavis.edu--"A Bumpy Shift from Icehouse to Greenhouse", Fossil from Smithsonian. Walchia went from the 'Uplands' to the lower basins-(floodplain forest region of Brule, Nova Scotia).
Photo-High Res--4 cm width Leaflet-(Order Voltziales); Article – www.colby.edu-"Carboniferous Paleoecological Scenarios"