Walchia

Extinct genus of conifers

Walchia

Temporal range: ~310–290 Ma

PreꞒ

Walchia piniformis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:  |

Plantae

Division:  |

Pinophyta

Class:  |

Pinopsida

Order:  |

Voltziales

Genus:  |

Walchia

Species

* Walchia garnettensis
* Walchia hypnoides
* Walchia piniformis

Walchia is a primitive fossil conifer found in upper Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) and lower Permian (about 310-290 Mya) rocks of Europe and North America. A forest of in-situ Walchia tree-stumps is located on the Northumberland Strait coast at Brule, Nova Scotia.

Besides the Walchia forest, fallen tree trunks, and leaflet impressions, the forest, fossil-rich layer contains numerous, 4-legged, tetrapod fossil trackways.

Walchia trunk

## Individual species

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W. hypnoides: from the schists of Lodeve; also copper slates of the Zechstein in Mansfeld.

## Monuran trackways

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At the same time period of 290 mya, another species was making fossil trackways, now preserved in New Mexico; Walchia leaflets are found in the same fossil layers. The Monuran trackways were made by Permian, wingless insects called monurans, (meaning "one-tail"); the insects' means of locomotion was hopping, then walking.

These 290 mya layers contain footprints of the large Dimetrodon, large/small raindrop impact marks, and also these fossil trackways of insects.

## References

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## External links

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General articles

* Chemosystematic and microstructural investigations--(including Walchia)
* Book preview-(1854)--W. hypnoides discussion

Walchia Fossil examples

* Graphic of W. piniformis branchlets, from James D. Dana, "Manual of Geology" [1]
* Photo-High Res; Article - www.news.ucdavis.edu--"A Bumpy Shift from Icehouse to Greenhouse", Fossil from Smithsonian. Walchia went from the 'Uplands' to the lower basins-(floodplain forest region of Brule, Nova Scotia).
* Photo-High Res--4 cm width Leaflet-(Order Voltziales); Article - www.colby.edu-"Carboniferous Paleoecological Scenarios"

Walchia fossils, with Monuran trackways

* "The Footfalls and Bellyflops of Permian Insects" - (from the Robledo Mountains of New Mexico)

Taxon identifiers

Walchia|

* Wikidata: Q3185543
* BioLib: 1132577
* EoL: 3198120
* GBIF: 3230252
* IRMNG: 1367842
* Open Tree of Life: 5282140
* Paleobiology Database: 389061
* Tropicos: 100474300