In the latter years, the gravel pit at Nobitz near Altenburg in Thuringia yielded remarkable chert samples of gray to brown colour with fossil remains of a Rotliegend vegetation represented by tree ferns, climbing ferns, cordaites, lycophyte trees, and calamites. Despite of this variety of fossils, these cherts are not the favourite objects of desire among collectors. They are outclassed by the much rarer yellow to red ones, which are not only more conspicuous but occasionally distinguished by excellent preservation of detail.

An especially beautiful sample from the collection FROHBERG/Friedrichroda, is shown here. It is a "maggot stone" (Fig.1) whose preservation compares to that of the better samples from Doehlen basin. A glass-clear chalcedony contains gymnosperm seeds (Fig.2) and fern pinnules with attached synangia (Fig.3 & Fig.4). The wall structure of the cut sporangia is distinctly seen from within. The slit for spore release is seen on one of the sporangia. The features seen here do not allow to decide whether it is Scolecopteris elegans or some other species. For this purpose it would be useful to have pinnules with visible veining pattern.

						Fig.1: red-yellow "maggot stone" from Nobitz
						Fig.2: gymnosperm seed
						Fig.3: fern pinnules
						Fig.4: well preserved sporangia