Pseudobornia
Encyclopedia
Pseudobornia is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s known only from fossils found from the Upper Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

. It contains a single species Pseudobornia ursina, and is the earliest fossil assigned with certainty to the Sphenopsida.

The first fossils of Pseudobornia were collected by Johan Gunnar Andersson
Johan Gunnar Andersson
Johan Gunnar Andersson , Swedish archaeologist, paleontologist and geologist, closely associated with the beginnings of Chinese archaeology in the 1920s...

 on Bear Island in the 1890s.
Pseudobornia is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s known only from fossils found from the Upper Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

. It contains a single species Pseudobornia ursina, and is the earliest fossil assigned with certainty to the Sphenopsida.

The first fossils of Pseudobornia were collected by Johan Gunnar Andersson
Johan Gunnar Andersson
Johan Gunnar Andersson , Swedish archaeologist, paleontologist and geologist, closely associated with the beginnings of Chinese archaeology in the 1920s...

 on Bear Island in the 1890s.
Pseudobornia is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s known only from fossils found from the Upper Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

. It contains a single species Pseudobornia ursina, and is the earliest fossil assigned with certainty to the Sphenopsida.

The first fossils of Pseudobornia were collected by Johan Gunnar Andersson
Johan Gunnar Andersson
Johan Gunnar Andersson , Swedish archaeologist, paleontologist and geologist, closely associated with the beginnings of Chinese archaeology in the 1920s...

 on Bear Island in the 1890s. Hans-Joachim Schweitzer, a paleobotanist, was the first to interpret the fossils as belonging to a large tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

, based on additional fossils discovered in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 in the 1960s.




The probable relationships within Equisetopsida
Equisetopsida
Equisetopsida, or Sphenopsida, is a class of plants with a fossil record going back to the Devonian. They are commonly known as horsetails...

 are shown in the cladogram below. The position where Ibyka would be has been added.
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