Callistophytales

Callistophytales is an extinct order of spermatophytes (seed plants) which lived from the Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous) to Permian periods.

They were mainly scrambling and lianescent (vine-like) plants found in the wetland "coal swamps" of Euramerica and Cathaysia.

The pollen-bearing organs are small compound structures formed from up to eight tapering sporangia fused at their base.

[2] Callistophytales were reproductively more sophisticated than most other Palaeozoic pteridosperms, some of which they seem to have out-competed and replaced in the "coal swamp" vegetation during Late Pennsylvanian and Permian times.

Callistophytales are occasionally classified within the class Lyginopteridopsida, alongside the order Lyginopteridales.