The discovery pushes the time of the first forests on the planet millions of years further into the past.

The age of the samples is 386 million years, this is the end of the Devonian period, when the first terrestrial vertebrates and primitive tree plants appeared on Earth.

The fossils were found in an old quarry on the Catskill range. Among the Sandstone, scientists have identified fossilized fragments of the roots of archaeopteris (Archaeopteris), early relatives of gymnosperms, ferns Eospermatopteris, as well as another species belonging to the PLA, writes Current Biology.

Archaeopteris were the very first trees on the planet. Scientists claim that they laid the Foundation for future modern forests. They had leaves of a familiar structure, while having long roots to absorb water and minerals.

Previously NEWS.ru he wrote that Russian and German paleontologists found on the territory of the Yakut Teete remains of sauropods — four-legged herbivorous dinosaurs that lived on all continents of the planet for 135 million years.