Hymenophyllaceae
The Hymenophyllaceae, the filmy ferns and bristle ferns, are a family of two to nine genera and about 650 known species of ferns, with a subcosmopolitan distribution, but generally restricted to very damp places or to locations where they are wetted by spray from waterfalls or springs. Fossil evidence shows that ferns of the family Hymenophyllaceae have existed since at least the Upper Triassic.

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- HymenophyllalesPBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta
Time the record covers
At least 323 million years on record.
The record covers at least 323.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 0 Mya.
36 occurrences of Hymenophyllaceae on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
36 occurrencesThese are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
11 formations
- Pottsville Formation15
- Karadon Formation3
- Carbondale Formation1
- Charleston Sandstone Formation1
- "Weber" Formation1
- Willwood Formation1
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The named rock units Hymenophyllaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Hymenophyllaceae and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Hymenophyllaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
203 taxa- Eusphenopteris16 sites
- Sphenopteris13 sites
- Asterophyllites12 sites
- Calamites11 sites
- Pecopteris11 sites
- Pecopteris (Alethopteris)11 sites
- Neuropteris10 sites
- Annularia9 sites
- Sphenophyllum8 sites
- Alloiopteris6 sites
- Cordaites6 sites
- Sigillaria6 sites
- Mariopteris5 sites
- Pinnularia5 sites
- Imparipteris heterophylla4 sites
- Lepidodendron aculeatum4 sites
- Lepidostrobus4 sites
- Neuralethopteris4 sites
- Neuralethopteris pocahontas4 sites
- Oligocarpia4 sites
- Palmatopteris furcata4 sites
- Sphenophyllum emarginatum4 sites
- Sphenopteris pottsvillea4 sites
- Dicksonites3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Hymenophyllaceae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
18 references- A paleoecological study of an in situ peat-forming Carboniferous forest in the Black Warrior Basin, Alabama8
- A paleontological study of an Early Pennsylvanian forest preserved above the Blue Creek Coal seam, Pottsville, Formation, Northwestern Alabama7
- An outline stratigraphy and palaeobotanical records from the middle Carboniferous rocks of northwestern Turkey3
- The Pennsylvanian-Permian vegetational transition: a terrestrial analogue to the onshore-offshore hypothesis2
- Upper Stephanian stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Puertollano Basin, Ciudad Real, Spain2
- Compression floras of the Upper Mansfield/Lower Brazil and Upper Staunton Formation in Parke and Clay Counties, Indiana2
- Megaflora of the Hell Creek and lower Fort Union Formations in the western Dakotas: Vegetational response to climate change, the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary event, and rapid marine transgression1
- Plant and mammal diversity in the Paleocene to Early Eocene of the Bighorn Basin1
- A Catalogue of Fossil Plants from India Part 6: Cenozoic (Quaternary) Palynology and Palaeobotany1
- Quantitative Analysis and Paleoecology of the Secor Coal and Roof-Shale Floras (Middle Pennsylvanian, Oklahoma)1
- Plant Fossils of the Pennsylvanian System of Georgia1
- Die unterkretazische Karsthöhlen-Füllung von Nehden im Sauerland. 1. Geologische, paläozoologische und paläobotanische Befunde und Datierung [The Lower Cretaceous karst cave fill of Nehden in Sauerland. 1 Geological, paleozoological, and paleobotanical finds and dating]1
Each of the 36 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 6 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Hymenophyllaceae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Hymenophyllaceae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHymenophyllales through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Link