Paleontology: World's First Tall Tree

Swedish Explorer Johan Gunnar Andersson discovered several of its fossilized branches on Norway's Bear Island in 1899. Remnants of its fanlike leaves have since been found in Alaska. But it remained for Bonn University Paleobotanist Hans-Joachim Schweitzer to determine that an ancient plant called Pseudobornia ursina was actually a tree that grew as high as 65 ft.—50 million years earlier than other trees of comparable height are known to have appeared. On a recent expedition to Bear Island, Schweitzer reports in the current issue of the German journal Umschau, he...

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