The latest discovery of a „higher“ plant in the Lower Devonian Rhynie chert dates back no further than the mid-nineties. As described in [1] it had been found in fragments of one large pod dug up near the Windyfield farms and thus named Ventarura, which is the Latin equivalent of windy field. (*)

Its prominent feature is a conspicuous dark ring seen on cross-sections of the upright axes as in Fig.1. It consists of adjoining thick-walled cells obviously more resistant against decay than other parts of the tissue are. Various proposals concerning its possible function have been considered in [1]. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that as a reinforcing tube.

Additional structural information came unexpectedly from a small piece of chert (0.2kg) found in 1998, whose true nature was recognized only after the paper [1] became available (**). It shows Ventarura cross-sections preferably grouped in pairs. One type of sections (Fig.2) seems to represent the 30° forking reported in [1], which may occur near the fertile region (Fig.3). The other one may occur below or on sterile shoots. The branching seems to be fairly symmetrical here but there is other evidence [2] that this need not be so. Another thin slab cut from the small specimen in 2004 reveals a tiny curled tip, probably the top of a not fully grown-up shoot (Fig.4).

						Fig.1: Ventarura from Rhynie chert, cross-section of upright axis
						Fig.2: cross-section of forking axis
						Fig.3: tentative reconstruction of Ventarura
						Fig.4: section of curled tip

Creeping and densely spaced upright axes without the reinforcing tube but otherwise compatible with Ventarura have been found in another small piece of chert. They might be submerged or subterranean axes of Ventarura like those mentioned in [1].

This sparse additional fossil material discovered lately has led to the tentative reconstruction in Fig.3.

*	The chert where Ventarura was discovered differs in location and stratigraphy from the previously known stack of Rhynie chert layers and therefore has been named Windyfield chert [3].
**	This chert sample was found well away from the Windyfield site so that it is either displaced Windyfield chert or else can serve as first evidence for the presence of Ventarura in other Rhynie chert layers.

text & drawings: H.-J. WEISS/Rabenau, photographs: H. SAHM/Dresden