surviving lepidodendron

This may gpo in ASB. What would be the effects if lepidodendron trees survived until the present day? I wrote a story in which a comic ray from a spsce war zapped a lycopod plant into a scale tree.

One effect would be to counter global warning. Since they grew to a hyndred feet tall in only ten years, they would absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. Dince their main would is on the outside rather than on the inside, they would not be very good for houses. They would, however, be a great source of paper.

thought it said surviving liopleurodon
saw that it did not
has no comment

Winnabago said:

thought it said surviving liopleurodon
saw that it did not
has no comment

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I have one comment: Surviving liopleurodon would be way cooler.

Some interesting paleoforests:


Devonian (Emsian) Asteroxylon Swamp


Carboniferous (Kasimovian) Calamites


Carboniferous (Gzhelian) Sigillaria, Calamites and Asterophyllites

I also thought it said Liopleurodon, and I was almost making jokes about unicorns and Candy Mountain

In any case, You'd need to prevent the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse, and that would be hard giving that we don't even know yet what caused it. A longer Carboniferous period would have interesting consequences. Insects would grow larger due to the adbundance of oxygen. Many clades of amphibians would probably thrive and survive in the enviroment. And Lepidodendrons MAY adapt and survive the next mass extinction. Of course it would be a vastly different world from what we know, and humanity would never evolve as we know it.

Other option is to make them a "living fossil". This would be rather hard, as they will have heavy competition from modern ginmnosperms and *angiosperms, if they ever evolve. Both options, however, are too far in the past to make humanity's rise likely.

Very interesting idea!

What you need is a "lost world" island like Socotra where spices & remnants of ecosystems that died out elsewhere manage to cling on. Not sure where you can find such a place for lepidodendron to survive though.

they do survive, but as a low ground hugging plant call clubmoss. To keep them as tree or bush sized they would have needed perhaps to become an island dwelling plant on a long lasting island chain.

altwere said:

they do survive, but as a low ground hugging plant call clubmoss. To keep them as tree or bush sized they would have needed perhaps to become an island dwelling plant on a long lasting island chain.

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Lepidodendrons are not very closely related to clubmosses at all. Their closest surviving relatives are the Isoetales, or quillworts, which are dinky little plants that live in very specific habitats where most other plants can't grow.

As noted above Lepidodendrons' nearest extant relative are the Quillworts.

Quillworts are edible by humans and fairly nutritious (though the taste is pretty disgusting).

Mayhaps Lepidodendrons are also edible by humans? A forest of giant edible pseudo-trees?

This makes me wonder...

Could some, in theory, "re-create" the Lepidodendrons by genetically modifying Quillworts to grow bigger?

It would probably require more sophisticated genetics technology than we have now but if what was said on this thread is true than Lepidodendrons could have economic & industrial uses (though I guess the papermill industry is not predicted to grow, is it?)

Incognito said:

This makes me wonder...

Could some, in theory, "re-create" the Lepidodendrons by genetically modifying Quillworts to grow bigger?

It would probably require more sophisticated genetics technology than we have now but if what was said on this thread is true than Lepidodendrons could have economic & industrial uses (though I guess the papermill industry is not predicted to grow, is it?)

Click to expand...

Well, Lepidodendrons and Isoetes are about as closely related to each other as elephants are to mice, so I don't know if we'd ever get the genetic engineering capability to do so. Lepidodendrons are to the club mosses like fish are to mammals in the sense that they belong to the same phyla. Lepidodendron and Isoetes are more closely related than either is to a club moss, but they still belong to different orders. Besides, Isoetes grows painfully slowly and doesn't have a morphology conducive to getting big. There are plenty of better candidates for paper making.