374million-year-old tree that became a prehistoric monster

♦ A tree with multiple trunks that split apart and repaired itself as it grew is the most complicated ever discovered, say scientists.

Fossils of the 374millionyear-old cladoxylopsid from north-west China reveal an intricate web of trunks that would have appeared like a “network of water pipes”.

Scientists from Cardiff University discovered that rather than laying down one growth ring under the bark every year, each of the hundreds of individual strands were growing their own rings, like a collection of mini trees. Dr Chris Berry said: “There is no other tree that I know of in the history of the Earth that has ever done anything as complicated as this. It simultaneously ripped its skeleton apart and collapsed under its own weight while staying alive and growing upwards and outwards to become the dominant plant of its day.”

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.