Lower Gondwana seeds

Abstract

The seeds of Lower Gondwana are found attached, detached, dispersed and mixed with other organs of being detached from the plants, which produced them. Like other plant fossils, seeds are also preserved in a variety of ways depending upon their structure and the conditions that prevailed during the time of deposition. They may be found as petrifaction or occur as impressions, cast and moulds or as carbonized compressions. Generally, seeds are longer than broad but few are broader than long. All these seeds are platyspermic. There are about thirty-two compressed seed genera are known from Lower Gondwana out of which twenty are described with complete structural details. The structural details and pollination of these seeds suggest that during the Palaeozoic time, seeds of at least three major groups of gymnosperms existed in Lower Gondwana countries, viz. Glossopteridales and allies, Cordaitales or Ginkgoales and primitive Coniferales.