Zosterophyllopsida

The Zosterophylls are a group of extinct plants. The taxon was first established by Banks in 1968 as the subdivision Zosterophyllophytina; they have since also been treated as the division Zosterophyllophyta and the class Zosterophyllopsida. They were among the first vascular plants in the fossil record, and had a world-wide distribution. They were probably stem-group lycophytes, forming a sister group to the ancestors of the living lycophytes. By the late Silurian (late Ludlovian, about 420 million years ago) a diverse assemblage of species existed, examples of which have been found fossilised in what is now Bathurst Island in Arctic Canada.