Maine: Pertica quadrifaria (state fossil)
Maine: Pertica quadrifaria (state fossil)
Maine's state fossil, the early land plant Pertica quadrifaria, may be one of the most unique and localized of all the state fossils. Millions of years before the state adopted the motto "I lead," this plant led its lineage to colonize an alien land.
Although most of Maine today is made up of metamorphic and igneous rocks which do not contain fossils, the chance eruption of a volcano 390 milliion years ago, during the Devonian Period, led to the ashfall preservation of a large colony of Pertica specimens. Because of this, the plant is well known and studied, and has helped in the scientific reconstruction of the evolution of land plants.
Pertica was a simple plant of the trimerophyte lineage, lacking both leaves and roots. However, strong stems tipped with terminal sporangia (reproductive structures) allowed Pertica to grow to heights of as much as 9 feet. Photosynthesis was accomplished by the stems and numerous branches. Trimerophytes as a group are though to have given rise to all the subsequent groups of terrestrial plants except for the lycopods (clubmosses).
The first fossils of Pertica were found in 1968 in the Trout Valley Formation near Mt. Katahdin. It was scientifically named four years later, and designated the state fossil in 1985.
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