📍 Location: Yosemite, California
🗓 Date: June 5, 2026
🐾 Media: Image
🌿 Species: Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum)
📝 Notes: Massive evergreen conifer native to the western slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada. Recognized by its enormous trunk, reddish-brown fibrous bark, and immense size, making it among the largest trees on Earth by volume.
Found in mixed conifer forests at mid to high elevations, Giant Sequoias can live for thousands of years. They produce small cones and rely in part on natural fire cycles to help create conditions favorable for seedling establishment. These iconic trees provide habitat for numerous wildlife species and are among the most celebrated trees in North America.
Mapping the evolution of life requires a detailed understanding of the fossil record, and scientists used the CLS to look at the cell struc
Dr. Christine Strullu-Derrien and colleagues used the Canadian Light Source’s Soft X-ray Spectromicroscopy beamline at the University of Saskatchewan to study Armoricaphyton chateaupannense, an extinct woody plant that is about 400 million years old. Their research focused on lignin, an organic compound in the plant tracheids, elongated cells that help transport water and mineral salts. Lignin makes the cells walls rigid and less water permeable, thereby improving the conductivity of their vascular system.
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One of the challenges in this kind of study is that the fossilization process modifies soft plant tissue, which alters or obscures its original biochemical structure and makes it difficult to precisely reconstruct the original chemistry. This study, however, aided by advanced visualization technologies, identified lignified cells in the fossils, suggesting the plant contained decay-resistant lignin compounds.
“Analyses show that both the 2D and 3D fossils have the same chemical composition, which is different than modern lignin, but the chemical signal of lignin is not completely lost in the fossilization process,” she said. Although the type of preservation of the plant fossils is not unique, “the combination of synchrotron methods used to study the structure and the chemistry of the wood at this level of detail is novel.”
terrestrial plant with no flowers or bulbs sporangia present
Herbs reproducing by spores released directly from sporangia, the sporangia variously located [on abaxial leaf face, [LYCOPHYTES and FERNS]
Plant terrestrial l; leaf 1-2 pinnate,; sporangia borne on aerial portion of leaf
Leaves all alike or nearly so, the fertile [sporangium-bearing] blades very similar in size and shape to sterile blades sporangia borne on underside of leaf blade, new leaves generally coiled, unrolling as they develop
Sori borne away from margin on underside of leaf or leaflet, sporangia clustered in distinct sori; indusia present
Sori ± round
Blade without needle-like hairs
Indusium peltate or round-reniform, attached ± in center of sorus , generally present and readily observable in late-season specimens ..... DRYOPTERIDACEAE
- Indusium peltate , centrally attached, without a sinus
- Veins generally free, rarely ± joined; leaf 1–3-pinnate, teeth, generally including bristle-like tips, < 4 mm ..... POLYSTICHUM
-Leaf generally 1-pinnate, rarely to partly 2-pinnate; pinnae generally simple, ± entire to serrate, in Polystichum kruckebergii sometimes 1-lobe
Leaf 10–120(200) cm; pinnae simple
Proximal pinnae ovate to lanceolate , ± = to ± 2/3 longest; stipe generally 1/5–1/2 blade
Stipe base scales lanceolate, ± 2–3 mm wide, those above proximal pinnae generally < 1 mm wide, falling early; pinnae ± in 1 plane or not; indusium ± entire to toothed ..... P. imbricans
DESCRIPTION
Rhizome: generally suberect to erect, often stout
Stipe/petiole: generally 1/5--1/2 of blade Stout, firm, generally densely scaly, base scales +- 2--3 mm wide, lanceolate, those above proximal pinnae generally, ×-section with many round vascular strands in an arc.
Blade: narrow-lanceolate to -elliptic, 1-pinnate,, proximal pinnae reduced or not, thin to leathery, scaly, veins generally free, rarely +- jointed; pinna bases often wider acroscopically; teeth, generally including bristle-like tip
Sporangia: sori round; indusium peltate [0 or reniform], sinus 0. indusium +- entire to toothed
J20161013-0046—Bahiopsis laciniata—RPBG—DxO by John Rusk
Via Flickr:
Bahiopsis laciniata—San Diego County viguiera. Formerly known as Viguiera lacinata. The range of B. laciniata extends southward from San Diego County to the Central Desert in Baja California. It has been used in restoration projects as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area to the displeasure of some restoration ecologists. Las Pilitas Nursery say the plant flowers nearly year around, an observation confirmed by the experience of Regional Parks Botanic Garden. Photographed at Regional Parks Botanic Garden located in Tilden Regional Park near Berkeley, CA.
The most famous sanctuary of the Quindio wax palm, Ceroxylon quindiuense, is located in Colombia’s Cocora Valley. The country’s national tree faces serious extinction risks
