A TYPE OF PALAEOZOIC PLANTS. 395 



nection between Catamites and SpJienophyllum have not 

 been supported by recent work, and we are now in 

 possession of abundant evidence in favour of the autono- 

 mous nature of the latter genus. 1 The Calamite must have 

 had somewhat the appearance of a magnified arborescent 

 Equisetum, its underground rhizome growing more or less 

 horizontally, or erect, in the sand or mud, giving off from 

 the nodes numerous adventitious roots, and woody aerial 

 shoots, which grew to a considerable height, and attained a 

 girth of several feet. From the nodes were developed 

 lateral branches, differing in number and disposition in the 

 several forms of the genus, and whorls of numerous uni- 

 veined leaves replaced the nodal leaf-sheaths of the recent 

 horse-tails. The long and narrow cones were borne on 

 slender pedicels, and in the same cone there were occasion- 

 ally macrospores and microspores, but probably more com- 

 monly the spores were all of one size. As regards the 

 development of the plant, we may reasonably suppose that 

 it was formed as the result of fertilisation of an ecra-cell 

 developed on a sexual prothallus, and possibly from the 

 oospore there would be first formed a rhizome structure 

 from which the calamitean tree gradually developed. 



In the present article special attention is given to the 

 histological structure and affinities of the o-enus Catamites. 



o o 



Writing of this plant in 1868, Binney 2 draws attention to 

 the desirability of encouraging descriptions and careful 

 examination of our English Carboniferous plants, and 

 adds : " When this is done we are likely to possess a 

 literature on our Carboniferous fossils worthy of the 

 first coal-producing country ". Since the above words were 

 penned much has been done towards the realisation of this 

 desideratum; Professor Williamson's series of memoirs "On 

 the Organisation of the Fossil Plants of the Coal Measures " 3 

 has furnished us with the necessary data from which to 

 build up a fairly complete description of many types of 

 Carboniferous plants. In February, 1894, a paper was 



1 Williamson and Scott, pp. 919 et seq. 



2 P. 1. 3 Phil. Trans., 1871-1S93. 



