''Barinophyton'' was a genus of early land plant with branching axes. It is placed in a group of early
vascular plant
Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes (, ) or collectively tracheophyta (; ), are plants that have lignin, lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified Ti ...
s (tracheophytes), the
barinophytes, a group that has been given various ranks and scientific names.
[ Known fossils are of ]Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...
to Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...
age ().[
]
Phylogeny
Kenrick and Crane in 1997 placed two species of ''Barinophyton'' along with the genus '' Protobarinophyton'' in the Barinophytaceae in their Sawdoniales
The Sawdoniales are an Order (biology), order or plesion of extinct zosterophylls. The zosterophylls were among the first vascular plants in the fossil record, and share an ancestor with the Lycopodiopsida, living lycophytes. The group has been d ...
, well nested within the zosterophyll
The zosterophylls are a group of extinct land plants that first appeared in the Silurian period. The taxon was first established by Banks in 1968 as the subdivision Zosterophyllophytina; they have since also been treated as the division Zostero ...
s.[ A summary cladogram produced by Crane et al. in 2004, shows ''Barinophyton'' in the core of a ]paraphyletic
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...
stem group
In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor. ...
of broadly defined zosterophyll
The zosterophylls are a group of extinct land plants that first appeared in the Silurian period. The taxon was first established by Banks in 1968 as the subdivision Zosterophyllophytina; they have since also been treated as the division Zostero ...
s, basal to the lycopsids (living and extinct clubmosses and relatives).[
The ]phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...
position of the barinophytes remains disputed. Taylor et al. in 2009 considered the barinophytes to be possible lycopsids rather than zosterophylls.[ Hao and Xue in 2013 suggested that they were not lycopsids, instead falling between this group and the ]euphyllophyte
The euphyllophytes are a clade of plants within the tracheophytes (the vascular plants). The group may be treated as an unranked clade, a division under the name Euphyllophyta or a subdivision under the name Euphyllophytina. The euphyllophytes ...
s.[
]
References
External links
Cladogram
from
Devonian plants
Prehistoric plant genera
{{devonian-plant-stub