A Revision of Lycopodiaceae from Uruguay

Lycopsids (Lycopodiopsida) are an ancient group with an extensive fossil record, the group includes some of the earliest known land plants and was a major component of the Late Paleozoic vegetation (Wikstrom & Kenrick, 2001). The group was soon recognized as the product of an early cladogenic event in land plant evolution (Kenrick & Crane, 1997). Recent phylogenetic analyses support this view and indicate that lycopsids are sister to all remaining vascular plants (Doyle 1998, Pryer et al. 2004). The fossil record provides strong evidence that the three extant lineages (Lycopodiaceae, Selaginellaceae and Isoëtaceae) also originated in the late Palaeozoic (Wikstrom & Kenrick, 2001).