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Tortilicaulis is a moss-like plant known from fossils recovered from southern Britain, spanning the Silurian-Devonian boundary (around 430 to 390 million years ago). Originally recovered from the Downtonian of the Welsh borderlands, Tortilicaulis has since been recovered in the famous Ludlow Lane locality.
Whilst it is generally accepted that Tortilicaulis was moss-like, it has not yet been recovered in a sufficiently good state of preservation to allow the detailed study necessary to firmly assign it to a taxonomic group. Fossils consist of an elongate apical sporangium (spore-forming organ), which may be branched, with spiralled walls attached to an undivided stalk that is also twisted. Unusually for plants of its time, spores of Tortilicaulis were covered all over with small granules.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Tortilicaulis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
