A new species of the Devonian lycopod genus, Leclercqia, from the Emsian of New Brunswick, Canada

A new species of the fossil lycopsid genus, Leclercqia, is reported from the Early Devonian (Emsian) of northern New Brunswick, Canada. The plant remains consist of dochotomizing axes covered with numerous, small, closely spaced leaves. The leaves are laminar and divided distally into five segments which curve upwards. An ellipsoidal sporangium attaches to the adaxial surface, proximal to divisions, of many leaves. Sporangia contain abundant and well-preserved spores assigned to the sporae dispersae genus Acinosporites. The habit of the plant is proposed to be that of an herbaceous lycopsid. Leclercqia and rewsii differs from the type species, L. complexa, in the organization of its leaf segments: all five segments curve or bend upward after the point of forking. The genus has previously been described from mostly Middle Devonian sediments of North America, South America (Venezuela), Australia (Queensland), and Europe, and also from the Early Devonian of North America. This account adds another Emsian occurrence of the genus Leclercqia in North America, documents a new species, and presents evidence of novel variation in early Devonian leclercqioid lycopsids relative to those present in the Middle Devonian. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.