Blechnum

Blechnum, known as hard fern, is a genus of ferns in the family Blechnaceae, subfamily Blechnoideae, according to the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016. Two very different circumscriptions of the genus are used by different authors. In the PPG I system, based on Gasper et al. (2016), Blechnum is one of 18 genera in the subfamily Blechnoideae, and has about 30 species. Other sources use a very broadly defined Blechnum s.l., including accepting only two other genera in the subfamily. The genus then has about 250 species. In the PPG I circumscription, the genus is mostly neotropical, with a few southern African species.

Blechnum

Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
BlechnoideaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 137 million years on record.

The record covers at least 137.05 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 149.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 19 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 19 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 19 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 19 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 19 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 4 of 19 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 19 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 19 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 19 occurrences152–147 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences147–142 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences142–137 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences86–81 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences81–76 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences76–71 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences71–66 Mya — about 1 occurrence66–61 Mya — about 2 occurrences61–56 Mya — about 2 occurrences56–51 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences51–46 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences46–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–30 Mya — about 1 occurrence30–25 Mya — about 2 occurrences25–20 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences20–15 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences15–10 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences10–5.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.1–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences137.05 Mya11.7 ka152 Mya0 Mya

19 occurrences of Blechnum on record, most of them in the Paleocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

19 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

10 formations

Fort Union — 40.59°N, 107.69°WFort Union — 43.70°N, 104.70°WLa Postrera — 38.17°S, 58.77°WLower Urgal Suite (Dublikan Suite) — 51.10°N, 132.80°EHorseshoe Canyon — 51.47°N, 112.77°WDenver — 39.75°N, 105.22°WRaton — 37.17°N, 104.50°WDawson arkose — 39.10°N, 104.87°WVentana — 42.13°S, 71.33°WHalf Three Point — 62.15°S, 58.73°WMorwell — 38.23°S, 146.62°E

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The named rock units Blechnum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Blechnum and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Blechnum and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

320 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Blechnum, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

12 references

Each of the 19 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Blechnum

Credit
Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Blechnum was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itBlechnoideae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753