LEBACHIA

a genus of extinct cone-bearing plants known from fossils of the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian epochs (from about 320 to 258 million years ago). Lebachia and related genera in the family Lebachiaceae, order Coniferales (sometimes family Voltziaceae, order Voltziales), appear to be among the immediate ancestors of all extant conifers except the yews. A tree of uncertain size with pinnately arranged side branches (like the barbs of a feather), Lebachia apparently had a growth habit similar to that of the present-day Norfolk Island pine. It bore both pollen-bearing and seed-bearing cones (the latter, as detached fossils, are called Gomphostrobus) at the ends of the side branches.