Weird ancient tree from before dinosaurs found in Canadian quarry

Before age of dinosaurs, plants experimented with bizarre forms, discovery shows

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Forests of giant, scaly-stemmed club mosses rose from ancient swamps in Atlantic Canada 350 million years ago.

But below the canopy sprouted even stranger trees, whose fossils were recently discovered in a quarry in Norton, N.B.

"What it really does look like is one of those truffula trees from The Lorax," said Olivia King, one of the researchers that discovered the fossil. She referred to a famous children's picture book by Dr. Seuss that features fantastic, colourful trees decimated to produce clothing called "thneeds."

The Lorax and Undefeated

Like the truffula, the new fossil species, Sanfordiacaulis densifolia, was a little taller than a human, but not extremely tall (about three metres), and had a spindly stem poking into a dense mop of long leaves. That mop was more extreme than the truffula's in size — over five metres, or about the diameter of an above-ground pool.

"It's different than anything we see today," said Matthew Stimson, who co-discovered the fossil, which is described in a new study published in Current Biology on Friday.

How it was found in a New Brunswick quarry

Sanfordiacaulis lived at a time called the Mississippian, an early part of the Carboniferous period. It was before dinosaurs or even reptiles had evolved, and insects and salamander-like amphibians were just starting to colonize the land. At the time, New Brunswick had a subtropical to tropical climate, and its lakes were surrounded by swampy forests.