Pteridospermatophyta

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The term Pteridospermatophyta (or "seed ferns") refers to several distinct groups of extinct seed plants (spermatophytes). The oldest fossil evidence of plants of this type is of late Devonian age, and they flourished particularly during the Carboniferous and Permian periods. Pteridosperms declined during the Mesozoic Era and had mostly disappeared by the end of the Cretaceous Period, though some fossil pteridosperm-like plants seem to have survived into Eocene times in Tasmania. The concept of the pteridosperms goes back to the late 19th century when palaeobotanists came to realise that many Carboniferous fossils resembling fern fronds had anatomical features more reminiscent of the modern-day seed plants the cycads. The German palaeobotanist Henry Potonie coined the term "Cycadofilices" for such fossils, suggesting that they were a group of non-seed plants intermediate between the ferns and cycads.