ICO 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



RECREATIONS IN FOSSIL BOTANY. 



REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS OF FOSSIL PLANTS. 



By James Spencer. 



No. IX. 



HAVING given a brief account of a few of the 

 common fossil plants found in our Halifax 

 coal strata, and which are also common in the Oldham 

 beds and elsewhere, before proceeding further with 

 these sketches, I wish to draw the reader's attention 

 to another class of objects which are in a great 



as the common fringed macrospores. In its mature 

 state, the sporocarpon wall is composed of a regular 

 series of hour-glass shaped cells, which are imbedded 

 in a plastic substance ; it is furnished with numerous 

 long hollow spines. These spines are merely pro- 

 longations of the hour-glass shaped cells, and each 

 has an opening or mouth into the interior of the 

 sporocarpon. The sporocarpon has a central nucleus, 

 which is composed of a thin structureless membrane, 

 containing a protoplasmic substance, which has been 

 developed in many of the specimens into round cells 

 or spores ; the young state of the sporocarpon (fig. 70). 

 Three stages in the development of this organism 



Fig. 69. — Sporocarpon elegans. 



measure confined to this neighbourhood, many 

 of them not having been recorded in any other 

 locality. 



Besides the common Lepidodendroid fruits and 

 spores, some of which I have already alluded to, 

 there are many other spores and conceptacles found 

 in our coal strata. Some of these are exceedingly 

 beautiful objects under the microscope, and also of 

 considerable interest to the fossil botanist. 



The objects I now wish to draw attention to have 

 been described, by Professor W. C. Williamson, under 

 the generic name of Sporocarpon. 



Sporocarpon elegans. — This is a seed-like object, of 

 about ^j in. in diameter, or of about the same size 



have been observed, all of which are connected 

 together by intermediate links. In the transverse 

 section of the youngest known state of this sporo- 

 carpon, the wall is composed of a single layer of 

 wedge-shaped brick-like cells arranged on their 

 smaller ends. Many of these cells have their ends 

 perfectly square, and in every'respect, save in size, 

 might have served as a model for some of the fire- 

 bricks used in lining chimneys and furnaces. 



The inner ends of the cells, that is, those forming 

 the inner surface of the spore wall, are all square, and 

 such was probably the case with all the outer ends in 

 the first instance, when the sporocarpon was formed. 

 The first departure from this uniform type of cell 



