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(a) Calamites proper, which has the woody wedges of scalariform or barred tissue with thin medullary rays, and the thick primary medullary rays are cellular.

(b) Calamopitus has reticulated or multiporous tissue in the woody wedges with medullary rays, and the primary medullary wedges are composed of elongated cells.

(c) Calamodendron has the woody wedges of barred tissue as in a, with medullary rays, but has the intervening medullary wedges of an elongated tissue approaching to woody fibre, and also with medullary rays.

To these I would add a fourth type, which I have described, from the coal-formation of Nova Scotia.*

(d) Eucalamodendron differs from Calamodendron in having true bordered pores or pseudo-scalariform slit-pored tissue, and corresponds to the highest type of calamitean stem.

I would also add that under a and b there are some species in which the woody cylinder is very thin in comparison to the size of the stem. In c and d the woody cylinder is thick and massive, and the stems are often large and nodose.

As an example of an ordinary Calamite in which the external surface and foliage are preserved, I may quote the following from my report on the "Flora of the Lower Carboniferous and Millstone Grit," 1873:

CALAMITES UNDULATUS, Brongniart.-This species is stated by Brongniart to be distinguished from the C. Suckovii, the characteristic Calamite of the middle coal-formation, by its undulated ribs marked with peculiar cellular reticulation. He suggests that it may be merely a variety of C. Suckovii, an opinion in which Schimper coincides; but since I have received large additional collections from Mr. Elder, containing not only the stems and branches, but also the leaves and rhizomes, I am constrained to regard it as a distinct though closely allied species.

The rhizomata are slender, being from one to two inches in diameter, and perfectly flattened. They are beautifully covered with a cellular reticulation on the thin bark, and show occasional round areoles marking the points of exit of the rootlets. I have long been familiar with irregular flattened stems thus reticulate, but have only recently been able to connect them with this species of Calamite.

The main stems present a very thin carbonaceous bark reticulated like the rhizomes. They have flat, broad ribs separated by deep

*"Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society," 1871.

and narrow furrows, and undulated in a remarkable manner even when the stems are flattened. This undulation is, however, perhaps an indication of vertical pressure while the plant was living, as it seems to have had an unusually thin and feeble cortical layer, and the unJulations are apparently best developed in the lower part of the stem. At the nodes the ribs are often narrowed and gathered together, especially in the vicinity of the rounded radiating marks which appear to indicate the points of insertion of the branches. At the top of each rib we have the usual rounded areole, probably marking the insertion of a primary branchlet.

The branches have slender ribs and distant nodes, from which spring secondary branchlets in whorls, these bearing in turn small whorls of acicular leaflets much curved upward, and which are apparently round in cross section and delicately striate. They are much shorter than the leaves of Calamites Suckovii, and are less dense and less curved than those of C. nodosus, which I believe to be the two most closely allied species.

Lesquereux notices this species as characteristic of the lower part of the Carboniferous in Arkansas.

It will be observed that I regard the striated and ribbed stems not as internal axes, but as representing the outer surface of the plants. This was certainly the case with the present species and with C. Suckovii and C. nodosus. Other species, and especially those which belonged to Calamodendron, no doubt had a smooth or irregularly wrinkled external bark; but this gives no good ground for the manner in which some writers on this subject confound Calamites with Calamodendra, and both with Asterophyllites and Sphenophyllum. With this no one who has studied these plants, rooted in their native soils, and with their appendages still attached, can for a moment sympathise. One of the earliest geological studies of the writer was a bed of these erect Calamites, which he showed to Sir C. Lyell in 1844, and described in the "Proceedings of the Geological Society" in 1851; illustrating the habit of growth as actually seen well exposed in a sandstone cliff. Abundant opportunities of verifying the conclusions formed at that time have since occurred, the results of which have been summed up in the figures in Acadian Geology, which, though they have been treated by some botanists as merely restorations, are in reality representations of facts actually observed.

On these subjects, without entering into details, and referring for these to the elaborate discussions of Schimper, Williamson, and McNab, and to my paper on the subject, “Journal of the Geological Society," vol. xxvii, p. 54, I may remark:

1. That the aërial stems of ordinary Calamites had a thin cortical layer, with lacunæ and fibrous bundles and multiporous vessels-the whole not differing much from the structure of modern Equiseta.

2. Certain arborescent forms, perhaps allied to the true Calamites, as well as possibly the old underground stems of ordinary species,* assumed a thick-walled character in which the tissues resembled the wedges of an exogen, and abundance of pseudo-scalariform fibres were developed, while the ribbing of the external surface became obsolete or was replaced by a mere irregular wrinkling.

3. Sufficient discrimination has not been exercised in separating casts of the internal cavities of Calamites and Calamodendron from those representing other surfaces and the proper external surface.

4. There is no excuse for attributing to Calamites the foliage of Annularia, Asterophyllites, and Sphenophyllum, since these leaves have not been found attached to true Calamite stems, and since the structure of the stems of Asterophyllites as described by Williamson, and that of Sphenophyllum as described by the writer,† are essentially different from those of Calamites.

5. As the species above described indicates, good external characters can be found for establishing species of this genus, and these species are of value as marks of geological age.

Genus ARCHEOCALAMITES, Sternberg.

This genus has been established to include certain Calamites of the Devonian and Lower Carboniferous, in which the furrows on the stem do not alternate at the nodes or joints, and the leaves in one species at least bifurcate. C. radiatus, Brongniart, is the typical species. In North America it occurs in the Erian, probably as low as the Middle Erian. In Europe it has so far been recognised in the Lower Carboniferous only. I have, however, seen stems from alleged Devonian beds in Devonshire which may have belonged to this species. Family ASTEROPHYLLITEÆ; Genus ASTEROPHYLLITES, Brongniart.

Stems ribbed and jointed like the Calamites, but with inflated nodes and a stout internal woody cylinder, which has been described by Williamson. From the joints proceeded whorls of leaves or of branchlets, bearing leaves which differed from those of Calamites in their having a distinct middle rib or vein. The fructification con

* Williamson, "Transactions of the Royal Society." McNab, in "Proceedings of the Edinburgh Botanical Society."

"Journal of the Geological Society," 1866.

sisted of long slender cones or spikes, having whorls of scales bearing the spore-cases. Some authors speak of Asterophyllites as only branches and leaves of Calamites; but though at first sight the resemblance is great, a close inspection shows that the leaves of Asterophyllites have a true midrib, which is wanting in Calamites.

Genus ANNULARIA.-It is perhaps questionable whether these plants should be separated from Asterophyllites. The distinction is that they produce branches in pairs, and that their whorls of leaves are one-sided and usually broader than those of Asterophyllites, and united into a ring at their insertion on the stem. One little species, A. sphenophylloides, is very widely distributed.

PINNULARIA—a provisional genus—includes slender roots or stems branching in a pinnate manner, and somewhat irregularly. They are very abundant in the coal shales, and were probably not independent plants, but aquatic roots belonging to some of the plants last mentioned. The probability of this is farther increased by their resemblance in miniature to the roots of Calamites. They are always flattened, but seem originally to have been round, with a slender thread-like axis of scalariform vessels, enclosed in a soft, smooth, cellular bark.

Family RHIZOCARPEE; Genus SPHENOPHYLLUM.

Leaves in whorls, wedge-shaped, with forking veins. Fructification on spikes, with verticils of sporocarps. These plants are by some regarded as allied to the Calamitea and Asterophylliteœ, by others as a high grade of Rhizocarps of the type of Marsilia. The stem had a star-shaped central bundle of scalariform or reticulatoscalariform vessels.

Genus SPORANGITES. (Sporocarpon, Williamson.)

Under this name we may provisionally include those rounded spherical bodies found in the coal and its accompanying beds, and also in the Erian, which may be regarded as Macrospores or Sporocarps of Protosalvinia, or other Rhizocarpean plants akin to those described above in Chapter III, which see for description.

Genus PROTOSALVINIA.-Under this we include sporocarps allied to those of Salvinia, as described in Chapter III.

Family FILICES.

Under this head I shall merely refer to a few groups of special interest, and to the provisional arrangement adopted for the fronds of ferns when destitute of fructification.

The external appearances of trunks of tree-ferns have been already referred to.

With respect to tree ferns, the oldest known examples are those from the Middle Devonian of New York and Ohio, which I have described in the "Journal of the Geological Society," 1871 and 1881. As these are of some interest, I have reproduced their descriptions in a note appended to Chapter III, which see.

The other forms most frequently occurring in the Carboniferous are Caulopteris, Palæopteris, and Megaphyton.* Stems showing merely masses of aërial roots are known by the name Psaronius.

With reference to the classification of Palæozoic ferns, this has hitherto been quite arbitrary, being based on mere form and venation of fronds, but much advance has recently been made in the knowledge of their fructification, warranting a more definite attempt at classification. The following are provisional genera usually adopted:

1. Cyclopteris, Brongniart.-Leaflets more or less rounded or wedge-shaped, without midrib, the nerves spreading from the point of attachment. This group includes a great variety of fronds evidently of different genera, were their fructification known; and some of them probably portions of fronds, the other parts of which may be in the next genus.

2. Neuropteris, Brongniart.-Fronds pinnate, and with the leaflets narrowed at the base; midrib often not distinct, and disappearing toward the apex. Nervures equal, and rising at an acute angle. Ferns of this type are among the most abundant in the coalformation.

3. Odontopteris, Brongniart.-In these the frond is pinnate, and the leaflets are attached by their whole base, with the nerves either proceeding wholly from the base, or in part from an indistinct midrib, which soon divides into nervures.

4. Dictyopteris, Gutbier.—This is a beautiful style of fern, with leaflets resembling those of Neuropteris, but the veins arranged in a network of oval spaces. Only a few species are known in the coalformation.

5. Lonchopteris, Brongniart.-Ferns with netted veins like the above, but with a distinct midrib, and the leaflets attached by the whole base. Of this, also, we can boast but few species.

6. Sphenopteris, Brongniart.—These are elegant ferns, very numerous in species, and most difficult to discriminate. Their most

* See my "Acadian Geology," also below.

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