Gosslingia

{{Short description|Extinct genus of spore-bearing plants}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| fossil_range = {{geological range/linked|Early Devonian|ref=}}

| display_parents = 2

| taxon = Gosslingia

| authority =

| subdivision_ranks = Species

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Gosslingia was a genus of Early Devonian land plant with branching axes.{{Cite journal | last1 = Boyce | first1 = C.K. | title = How green was Cooksonia? The importance of size in understanding the early evolution of physiology in the vascular plant lineage | journal = Paleobiology | volume = 34 | pages = 179–194 | year = 2008 | issue = 2 | doi = 10.1666/0094-8373(2008)034[0179:HGWCTI]2.0.CO;2 | issn = 0094-8373 }} Fossils have been from the Lochkovian to the Pragian, {{period span/brief|Lochkovian|Pragian}}.

A cladogram published in 2004 by Crane et al. places Gosslingia in the core of a paraphyletic stem group of broadly defined "zosterophylls", basal to the lycopsids (living and extinct clubmosses and relatives).{{Cite journal |last1=Crane |first1=P.R. |last2=Herendeen |first2=P. |last3=Friis |first3=E.M. |year=2004 |title=Fossils and plant phylogeny |journal=American Journal of Botany |volume=91 |pages=1683–99 |doi=10.3732/ajb.91.10.1683 |issue=10 |pmid=21652317|doi-access=free }}

{{clade

| label1=lycophytes

| 1={{Clade lycophyte}}

}}

Hao and Xue in 2013 used the absence of terminal sporangia to place the genus in the family Gosslingiaceae in the paraphyletic order Gosslingiales, a group considered to have indeterminate growth, with fertile branches generally showing circinate vernation (initially curled up). Kenrick and Crane in 1997 also placed the genus in the family Gosslingiaceae, but they place this family in the order Sawdoniales.