Early land plants with elongate sporangia held in the palaeobotanical archives of Museums Victoria were examined. The fossil plants are from Yea (?upper Silurian) and near Matlock (Lower Devonian) in central Victoria, and are of interest because they contribute to our understanding of the evolution of early land plants in a region in which research has been limited. Both Salopella australis and Salopella caespitosa were originally described over 30 years ago and this reinvestigation has resulted in the emending of the diagnosis of Salopella australis and the erection of a new morphotaxon Salopella laidae sp. nov. based primarily on differing branching architecture and sporangial morphology. Salopella laidae comes from Yea Formation and possesses regular isotomous branching over at least two orders of branching, terminating in elongate sporangia that are wider than their subtending axes, differing from S. australis, which possesses only one dichotomy emanating from at least two erect parallel parent axes with sporangia that are the same width as their subtending axes. A recently collected specimen of Salopella caespitosa was also examined and adds to our understanding of this taxon, which was previously only known from one specimen. Consideration is given to the possible sources of these early land plants based on other early land plants with a similar grade of organisation.
Three specimens belonging to Zosterophyllaceae are described. Two of these possess bilateral symmetry and are the first to be described with this arrangement from the Lower Devonian of Victoria. One of these specimens is similar to Zosterophyllum fertile, and the other cf. Zosterophyllum sp. A. is unusual in possessing vascularised long stalks. The third specimen described cf. Zosterophyllum sp. B. from Ghin Ghin Road, near Yea possesses a small spike and has sporangia that appear vertically elliptical and similar to some South China taxa. All the specimens are significantly different to previous zosterophyll taxa described from Victoria.
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