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A tropical New Brunswick home to Dr. Seuss-like tree 350 million years ago

Find opens a window into a world of plants during the Carboniferous period
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Sanfordiacaulis model with simplified branching structure for easier visualization is shown in this handout image provided by Tim Stonesifer. Note that humans are provided for scale but did not exist concurrently with the tree. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Tim Stonesifer

An enigmatic fossil uncovered seven years ago in a New Brunswick quarry has been found to reveal an extinct tree with a narrow trunk and a top like a pompom, a remnant from a time before dinosaurs walked the Earth.

A paper published last week in the journal Current Biology opens a window into a world of plants during the Carboniferous period, when New Brunswick was a tropical land within 10 degrees of the equator.

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