Sciadophyton

{{Short description|Extinct genus of Devonian plants}}

{{automatic taxobox

| fossil_range={{Geological range/linked|Early Devonian|ref={{cite book | title=Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth | publisher=Dorling Kindersley | author=Palmer, Douglas | year=2009 | location=New York | isbn=978-0-7566-5573-0 | page=117 | edition=first American|display-authors=etal}}}}

| image = Sciadophyton.JPG

| image_caption = Sciadophyton fossil on display at the Museum of Man and Nature

| taxon = Sciadophyton

| authority = Steinrnann 1930

}}

Sciadophyton is a morphotaxon of lower Devonian plants known only from compression fossils.{{cite journal | title=Sciadophyton Steinmann - ein Gametophyt aus dem Siegen. |author1=Remy, W. |author2=Remy, R. |author3=Hass, H. |author4=Schultke, S. |author5=Franzmeyer, F. | journal=Argumenta Palaeobotanica |trans-title=Sciadophyton Steinmann - a gametophyte of the victories. | year=1980 | volume=6 | pages=37–72 | language=German}}{{cite journal | title=Life history biology of early land plants: deciphering the gametophyte phase |author1=Taylor, T. N. |author2=Kerp, H. |author3=Hass, H. | journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |date=April 2005 | volume=102 | issue=16 | pages=5892–7 | issn=0027-8424 | doi=10.1073/pnas.0501985102 | pmc=556298 | pmid=15809414|doi-access=free }} It is interpreted as the monoicous gametophyte of a vascular land plant, because its vascularised branches end in a cup-shaped structure bearing gametangia, both antheridia and archegonia,{{cite book | title=The origin and early diversification of land plants: A cladistic study. | publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |author1=Kenrick, P. |author2=Crane, P. R. | year=1997 | location=Washington, D. C.}} but little structural information is preserved at the cellular level. It formed rosettes of stems, which may have radiated from a basal gametophytic corm-like thallus or from a central 'stem' or even from a root system, although there is not enough evidence to discriminate between these possibilities.