Baragwanathia

Baragwanathia is a genus of extinct lycopsid plants of Late Silurian to Early Devonian age (427 to 393 million years ago), fossils of which have been found in Australia, Canada, China and Czechia.

By comparison, the closely related genus Drepanophycus of the same period (see Drepanophycaceae for more details) bore its sporangia on the upper surface of specialized leaves known as sporophylls.

As in Asteroxylon the vascular bundle in the stems was an exarch actinostele, with a star-shaped arrangement of tracheids of a primitive annular or helical type (so-called G-type).

Leaves were unbranched strap-shaped microphylls (4 cm long in B. longifolia) with a single prominent vascular thread, arranged spirally on the stem.

However, the Silurian (Ludlovian) dating of the deposit in Victoria, Australia which produced the type specimens of Baragwanathia longifolia was later disproved, as Monograptus (and in particular the species present at that site) was later proved to persist into the Early Devonian.