Palaeontologie. 303 



weisen auf ein älteres Ast- oder Stammholz hin. Die sehr genau 

 durchgeführte vergleichende Untersuchung — ergab ebenfalls mit 

 Sicherheit die Zugehörigkeit zu Phms süves^tyis. Verf. gibt aus 

 der Literatur die Fälle einzeln an, wo in interglazialen Ablagerun- 

 gen Reste von Pums silve.^tris gefunden wurden. 



Matouschek (Wien). 



Scott, D. H., Studies in Fossil Botany. Vol. I. Pteridophy ta. 

 (Second Edition. 353 pp. with 128 figures. A. C. Black & Co. 1908.) 



This, the first volume of the second edition corresponds to 

 Lectures I— IX of the first edition and treats of those groups of 

 fossil plants that are still regarded as on the whole cryptogamic. 

 It contains twenty seven additional figures. The first Chapter is in- 

 troductory, the second deals with the Equisetales; the principal 

 addition to the latter chapter is a short description and a figure of 

 the Lower Carboniferous Calainites [Protocalarnites) pettyctirensis, 

 showing the centripetal primary xylem characterislic of this species. 

 In the third chapter are incorporated the results of Hickling's 

 researches showing that in Palaeostachya the bracts and sporangiopho- 

 res are approximately equal in number; that the traces which enter 

 the apparently axillary sporangiophores start from the same node 

 as the bundles running to the subtending bracts and just above the 

 traces of the latter; that they pass half way up the internode and 

 are reflexed tili they enter the sporangiophore. The course of the 

 sporangiophore-traces indicates that the sporangiophores are the ven- 

 tral appendages of the subtending bracts. The anomalous course of 

 its sporangiophore trace causes Hie kling to regard Palaeostachya 

 as derived from the Calamostachys type. The account of the Mesozoic 

 Equisetales is somewhat extended in the present edition b}'^ a brief 

 notice of Halle's work on them; this includes the mention of certain 

 points in which Halle's genus Neocalamites and the Rhaetic and 

 Liassic Eqiiisetites resemble the Palaezoic Calamariae. In Chapter IV 

 the new matter includes a short description of SphenopJiyllurn 

 fertüCj in which the dorsal and ventral lobes of the sporoph3'll are 

 fertile and apparentlj^ similar; a Condensed account of the Devonian 

 Pseuäohornia, with its superposed whorls of large fern-like leaves 

 and long lax spikes. This genus is regarded as showing affinity 

 with the older Equisetales and Sphenophyllales, and as the repre- 

 sentative of an ancient synthetic race of plants, of which the Spheno- 

 ph3^11ales were hitherto the only known examples. In Chapter V the 

 alterations made in the second edition are unimportant but in Chap.ter 

 VI, owing to difficulties of interpretation suggested b}" Watson, 

 the nature of the organs leaving the characteristic CJlodendroid 

 scars is once more declared doubtful. Halonia is still regarded as 

 probably a cone-bearing Lepidodendraceous brauch. A feature of 

 this chapter in the second edition is a description, with figures of 

 the seedlike fructification of -Lepidocarpon and Miadesmia and a 

 brief notice of the cone of Bothrodendron rnundiim. In Chapter VII 

 the advances in our knowledge recognized include the probability 

 that a bifascicular type of leaf occurred both in the EiisigiUariae and 

 the Subsigillariae ; and an account of various herbaceous Lycopoditae 

 including the heterosporous genus SelaginelHtes. The discovery of 

 numerous seed-bearing fronds and of the Microsporangia of certain 

 Pteridosperms closely resembling Marattiaceous fructification has 

 caused considerable changes in the last two chapters of the present 



