Plant Fossils
- Comments
-
Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 1,800 specimens of fossil plants. The collection is mainly fossil plant specimens with a few microscope slides and acetate peels. Most of the collection, around 1,400 specimens, is from the Carboniferous Period, although other geological periods are represented, including the Silurian, Devonian, Jurassic, Tertiary and Quaternary. The Carboniferous examples are mainly from Scotland and include a range of non-flowering plants – clubmosses (Lycopods), horsetails (Sphenopsids), ferns (Filicopsids), seed ferns (Pteridosperms) and cordaites. At this time Scotland was situated near the equator and covered with a vast, tropical, swamp forest, where plant life was abundant. It was this rich source of plant material that eventually formed the main coal deposits in Britain and Europe. Around 1,000 specimens, many from the coal mines of central Scotland, were received in 1946 from Dr R G Absalom. Examples of anatomically preserved plants from Pettycur and other Scottish localities were collected by Professor Andrew Scott. There are also specimens from East Kirkton Quarry, Bathgate. In addition, there is a small but scientifically important collection of fossil leaves, including type specimens, from the famous Tertiary leaf beds of Ardtun on the Isle of Mull. They belong to Quercus, Ginkgo and other genera of deciduous trees, and were donated in 1910 by Lord Archibald Campbell, son of the 8th Duke of Argyll who first brought these fossils to the notice of palaeontologists around 1850.
- Broader term
- Staff Contact