172 Mr. Binney on the remarkable Fossil Trees 



the correctness of this opinion of my late friend has been ques- 

 tioned by some eminent authorities nevertheless ; after having 

 examined many large specimens of upright Sigiilariae, I am 

 led to believe that the lower portions of very old trees, when 

 decorticated, do not exhibit those regular ribs, furrows, and 

 scars so characteristic of young specimens, and that he was 

 perfectly right in his supposition. No. 2, a lesser specimen 

 than No. 1, is an undoubted Sigillaria reniformis, but it gives 

 no more evidence of being allied to No. k than having been 

 found near it. No. 3 is also a Sigillaria, and the main roots 

 have almost disappeared, but its fibrils or radicles radiating 

 from the places formerly occupied by them, are most certainly 

 of the same kind as those of No. 1. Therefore, if similarity 

 of fibrils or radicles is any evidence of identity, No. 1 must be 

 decided to be a Sigillaria. 



In addition to this I may state, that the upright stem before 

 described as found at Clay Cross, was an undoubted speci- 

 men of Sigillaria, and the root traced to it a Stigmaria. 



Having thus described the upper portions of these trees, let 

 us now consider their extremities. With regard to the roots 

 of the specimens being Stigmarise, there might be a reasonable 

 ground to doubt it, if the fibrils were the only evidence of the 

 proposition ; but when we find that not only are the fibrils the 

 same, but the areolae and the central pith, in fact the whole of 

 the characters of the Stigmaria attached to the root, there can 

 scarce exist a doubt upon the subject. 



The stems Nos. 1 and 3, being only partially exposed, have 

 not been examined for the purpose of noticing those concave 

 depressions so generally found in upright Sigiilariae, and which 

 Mr. Bowman suspected might have been made by some para- 

 sitical plant, but which it is probable were really caused by the 

 change in the position of a central woody axis. No. 2 displays 

 it, although the internal cylinder, which, by its removal from 

 the centre, caused the depression to take place, cannot now be 

 seen, as is generally the case, without breaking the specimen 

 vertically. These internal cylinders in the centre of upright 

 Sigiilariae have not been described with the attention that is due 

 to them, and cannot have escaped the attention of collectors. 

 They are not often to be seen in coarse sandstone casts, but 

 are rarely absent in those of indurated clay when carefully 

 looked for, and when the cylinders have not been filled up 

 with masses of leaves and other parts of plants. In a speci- 

 men of Sigillaria from Clay Cross, I have a cylinder with its 

 outside coated with carbonaceous matter and resembling the 

 cast of the exterior of the stem of a common calamite or E?ido- 



