Fossil Vegetables of the Coal Formation. ^iS 



the destruction of these vegetables, have produced upon them, 

 an idea will be obtained of the difficulties to be experienced in 

 the attempt to. determine detached portions of plants so modi- 

 fied. All these circumstances will serve as so many excuses fot 

 errors, and numerous observations become necessary for rectify- 

 ing them. 



It is thus, that, from errors too gross to be mentioned, all those 

 large trees which accompany the coal strata, have in a general 

 view been considered as stems of palms. Perhaps even, under 

 this name, it has only been intended to indicate their place a- 

 mong the Monocotyledbnes, a class in which the arborescent ve* 

 getables are rare, and belonging almost exclusively to this fami- 

 ly of palms. A closer examination has shewn, that these large ve- 

 getables of the coal formation possess characters which announce 

 very different structures, and which have given rise to their 

 being divided into several genera ; such are the stems to which 

 have been applied the names of Calamites, Sigillariae, Clathrariae, 

 Syringodendra, Stigmariae, Sagenarige or Lepidodendra. On 

 comparing them with the different vegetables at present exist- 

 ing, it has been found that none of them could be referred to 

 the family of palms, or to the arborescent vegetables of the neigh- 

 bouring families, such as the Asparageae, Pandanaceae, Liliaceae," 

 &c. Numerous and important characters, on the contrary, have 

 appeared to me to bring the Calamites in relation with the 

 Equiseta ; to associate the Sigillarias and Clathrariae, which per- 

 haps should only form two sections of the same genus of ferns ; 

 to refer the Sagenariae or Lepidodendra of Sternberg to the Ly- 

 copodiaceae ; and, lastly, to indicate in the Stigmariae a consider- 

 able affinity to the stems of some Aroideae. With regard to the 

 Syringodendra, their position in the vegetable kingdom has be6flV 

 hitherto the subject of conjectures supported by proofs more or 

 less probable, but always refuted. They have thus been succes- 

 sively transported from the family of Palms to that of Cactaceae, 

 from the latter to that of Euphorbiaceae, &c., without its appear- 

 ing possible to admit any of these affinities. Not finding any 

 thing, therefore, among the vegetables which exist at the present 

 day to which they presented any affinity, I had considered them 

 as remains of a genus entirely different from all those with which 

 we are acquainted. New observations, however, made in the 



