Walchia

Taxobox

---

image_width = 250px
image_caption = "Walchia piniformis"
regnum = Plantae
divisio = Pinophyta
classis = Pinopsida
ordo = Voltziales
genus = "Walchia"
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =
*"Walchia garnettensis"
*"Walchia hypnoides"
*"Walchia piniformis"

"Walchia" is a fossil conifer, cypress-like genus of Upper Pennsylvanian, Carboniferous age, about 290 mya. It is found in Europe; also 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.

External links

General articles:
* [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6W-45PTTH7-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=68cccc3a559630cc4ea61f58b8d00ee0 Chemosystematic and microstructural investigations--(including "Walchia")]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=g04-0wFBOEUC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=walchia+conifer&source=web&ots=LbbQFLbxF7&sig=HRHuQ3tZohwLQC5Iwdb-zVns7PU Book preview-(1854)--"W. hypnoides" discussion]

Walchia Fossil examples:
* [http://www.geology.19thcenturyscience.org/books/1896-Dana-ManGeol/figures/705-fig1147t.gifGraphic of "W. piniformis" branchlets] , from James D. Dana, "Manual of Geology" [http://www.geology.19thcenturyscience.org/books/1896-Dana-ManGeol/htm/doc-full.html]
* [http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/photos_images/news_images/01_2007/Walchia_lg.jpgPhoto-High Res] ; [http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7994 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).
* [http://www.colby.edu/~ragastal/Images/walchia.gifPhoto-High Res--4 cm width Leaflet-(Order Voltziales)] ; [http://www.colby.edu/~ragastal/Paleobotany/Permocarboniferous.htm Article] – www.colby.edu-"Carboniferous Paleoecological Scenarios"

Walchia fossils, with Monuran trackways:
* [http://www.hmnh.org/archives/category/paleozoic/ "The Footfalls and Bellyflops of Permian Insects"] – (from the Robledo Mountains of New Mexico)