Alethropteris is an educated guess. The sample resembles an image of that fern in Fenton's The Fossil Book, and plants was never a strong suit with me. The truly unique characteristic of this sample is that I was using it forever in my class, and only saw it as a dark outline of a fern. I went into the school to get it, and the sample had started to crumble. As I picked up the pieces this magnificent, almost pure white, mold and cast appeared. The white is a coating of kaolin. It was collected by my fossiling buddy in the late 60's early 70's from somewhere in Pennsylvania. That's all I know. The rock has turned very fragile, and the fossils will probably totally disintegrate soon.
Return to Ferns to view a high resolution image of Alethropteris.
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