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The landscape The area of Lodève during the Autunian was a landscape with low, eroded mountains, cut by rivers. The banks were densely grown with woods of Walchia-like trees, alternated with seed ferns and Cordaites-trees. Surely there will have been ferns, but the chance for fossilisation of these plants was very small because of their thin cuticle. Walchia-like conifers were long thought to have lived under very dry circumstances, but the quarry Les Tuilières has proved that this was not always the case. Seed ferns and Cordaites, which lived in moderately humid to moderately dry environments, occur here together with Walchia. A lot of excellent fossils have been found in the quarry during the previous two ages and the things we find there nowadays are not comparable. But nevertheless it is possible trough these fragmentary fossils to get a notion of the flora of the Late Autunien, about 280 million years ago.