Virtual Museum of Canada
Jardin botanique de Montréal 
Centre for Forest Research

Transcription of video clip 3.2.1

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Since the beginning of time, a conquest of the skies

Drawing of Archaeopteris, the first modern tree, overlaid on top of a photo

© Jardin botanique de Montréal
Archaeopteris

In this image, an intruder 420 million years old.

This is Archaeopteris, considered the first modern tree.

Thanks to the clues left in fossils, scientists decoded a part of plant history.


This fossil could be the ancestor of the alder.

Photo of a fossilized tree leaf

© Jardin botanique de Montréal
A fossilized tree leaf

Photo of an alder leaf

© Jardin botanique de Montréal (??)
This alder leaf looks like the fossil.




This leaf, in the shape of a fan, is characteristic of Ginkgos, of which one species has survived to this day.

This one resembles the leaf of a hornbeam, a member of the betulaceae family.

This fossil has several needles at the tip of a branch: evidence that it was a conifer.

On this fossil, it is difficult to imagine a tree, since it seems to us a fern frond.

In fact, ferns too had their period of arborescent glory. The majority of them disappeared over time.
But a few produced descendants that we can still observe today.

These trunk fossils are from a lycopod, Lepidodendron.
The diamond shapes are foliar scars.
Since it had to reach a certain height before branching, Lepidodendron had leaves directly on its trunk. A hairy tree!

And this fossil? It's another lycopod, Sigillaria, that had at most two branches and, at its crown, grass-like leaves.
In short, it looked like a broom!

Can you imagine what our forests would look like if they were populated by all these long gone arborescent plants?


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