A miniature football from the Rhynie chert
deutsche Version

charophyte whorl base
What looks here like a ball stitched together from polygonal patches seems to be a solid sphere made of tightly fitting polyhedral alga cells, placed at the base of a whorl of charophyte branches.
The polyhedral cells differ strongly from the big tube-like cells of the branches. A few of the possibly 7 branches of this whorl vanish in the depth of the picture, hence Fig.1 is a tilted view from below. Apparently the stem below the whorl has been cut off, thus is not seen here.

Fig.1: Multicellular sphere, 
0.24mm, at the base of a charophyte whorl with branches
         consisting of big cells, seen on a cut face
of a chert sample. Image height 1mm.

Of the charophyte algae in the Rhynie chert it is known that their stem and branch segments consist of only one cell, like with extant Nitella, after which the name Palaeonitella had been coined [1]. As pointed out before [2], this might not have been an apt choice because some or even all of the algae called 
Palaeonitella are wide apart from Nitella and all known charophytes in a phylogenetic sense. (See also Rhynie Chert News 93 .)
The ball in Fig.1 is not a unique phenomenon. There are more of such but less beautiful ones, as in Figs.2,3 (same scale as Fig.1).
charphyte whorl section
Fig.2 (left): Charophyte whorl base exposed as a cross-section, seen from belowon the raw sample surface.
Image 0.65mm.


Fig.3 (below):
Multicellular globule as seen just below the raw sample surface, poorly preserved, no branches left.
Image height 0.25mm.

charophyte whorl base


Similar as with Fig.1, the well-preserved branches of the whorl seen from below in Fig.2 are directed upward (into the picture plane). The segmentation of the globule is faintly indicated.
Despite of the missing branches in Fig.3, this object, too, is apparently similar to the sphere in Fig.1.
These globules differ largely from the whorl bases of 
Palaeonitella in [3].

All pictures have been taken from a chert sample of 0.28kg found in 2003, labelled Rh9/86.


Annotation: The interpretation of these pictures is fraught with doubt. The ball in Fig.1 is disturbingly similar to the antheridia of several recent charophytes. What is thought to be antheridia of the charophyte in this sample of Rhynie chert looks quite different. Hence, the similarity of the sphere in Fig.1 with recent antheridia may be incidental. Another cause of concern is the whorl bases consisting of multi-cellular spheres, which would be a novelty among charophytes. Considering that this charophyte is supposed to be a hitherto unnamed species, these observations may be more interesting than disturbing.  

H.-J. Weiss
   2018  (emended Version)

[1]  R. Kidston, W.H. Lang: On Old Red Sandstone plants … Part V,
    Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh 52(1921), 855-902.
[2]  H.-J. Weiss: First xanthophyte and new charophyte in the Rhynie chert.
    87th Annual Conference of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft, Dresden 2016.
[3]   www.abdn.ac.uk/rhynie
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