HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 



TOI 



ground, after the manner of those in the celebrated 

 banyan tree. Ulodendron was therefore a root- 

 bearing branch, according to this very high authority 

 on Fossil Botany. Such a notion was very repug- 

 nant to the feeling of many geologists, who did not 

 like to see a royal plant like ulodendron being 

 debased to the level of a root-bearing branch, but 

 the decision of so eminent an authority as Mr. 

 Carruthers was generally loyally accepted. Here 



but, on the contrary, all the facts tended to show that 

 these scars had been the bases of cones. The cones 

 were not necessarily very large ones. When uloden- 

 dron was producing its cones, it was probably only a 

 small branch, and in support of this opinion I may 

 say that I have sometimes met with ulodendron not 

 more than an inch or two in diameter. But after 

 the plant had ceased to form cones on the uloden- 

 dron branches, those branches would continue to 



III 



Fig. 66.— rt, Lepidodendron (restored); b and c, impressions on bark ; d, stemwith leaves ; e, leaflet ; /, fruit of 

 Lepidodendron, called Lepidostrobus ; g, showing spores in bracts of fruit. 



again the superior facilities for studying the fossil 

 plants which Professor W. C. Williamson enjoys 

 proved invaluable to him and to science, in settling 

 once for all what was the true nature of uloden- 

 dron. 



By the aid of a number of good sections of this 

 plant, he was enabled to show that the scars of 

 ulodendron were entirely belonging to the bark, that 

 they did not owe their origin to the pith, as they 

 must have done had they been the bases of roots ; 



grow, and of course these scars would continue to 

 enlarge. 



So we find casts of ulodendron of all sizes from an 

 inch to a foot or more in diameter. Professor W. C. 

 Williamson has again had the good fortune to have 

 his opinion on this point confirmed by the actual 

 finding of a ulodendron with the cones attached by 

 Mr. D'Arcy Thompson. 



The cones were not very large ones, but had a 

 broad base, though the actual point of attachment to 



