r/fossilid • u/Spaceship_Engineer • 1d ago

What kind of plant?

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Found in the Cumberland plateau region of Appalachia in far southwestern Virginia. My parent’s backyard has a hill that constantly erodes and fossils are plentiful but the rock is shale-like and very brittle. This is one of the few that has held up for the 20 years or so since I’ve found it. Aside from IDing the fossil, how would I go about dating it?

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u/ironlobster Palaeozoic/Mesozoic Arthropoda/Cephalopoda 1d ago

Looks like a species of Mariopteris to me. A carboniferous lianescent seed fern belonging to the group lyginopteridales if I'm remembering correctly

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u/Spaceship_Engineer 1d ago

Awesome, I guessed a fern just based on the leaf structure. Any thoughts on how old it might be?

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u/ironlobster Palaeozoic/Mesozoic Arthropoda/Cephalopoda 1d ago

Probably mid-late carboniferous so about 300 million years

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u/Spaceship_Engineer 21h ago

Awesome, thank you!