74 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [august .^ 



from KavdrfKia, the classic term for packsaddles with baskets or 

 panniers. 



Nathorst in 19 14 (16) had a vague suspicion concerning the 

 nature of one of the species now included within the genus under 

 discussion, Lepidophyllum mirabile Nath. from the Lower Carbonif- 

 erous of Spitzbergen, and this he expressed when he ventured two 

 hypotheses: (i) that we may be dealing with a sporangium in 

 which longitudinal sterile plates such as we observe in certain 

 sporangia of Lepidostrohus were developed to a point w^here they 

 divided it into distinct and separate loculi, 2 loculi where the plate 

 is simple and 3 where it forks, somewhat after the manner of the 

 sterile plate figured by Williamson (37) (fig. 41); or (2) that this 

 structure may consist of 2 concrescent sporophylls of which the 

 lower bearing the blade is sterile, while the upper bearing 2 spo- 

 rangia is fertile. While the nature of the material was such that 

 its real character was not apparent, Nathorst's very suggestive 

 speculation concerning it prepares us somewhat for the discovery 

 that the Carboniferous Lepidophytes are not the homogeneous 

 stereotyped group they were long supposed to be. 



The number of the sporangia subtended by each sporangiferous 

 ' bract or sporophyll and the manner of their attachment have figured 

 so largely in recent discussion of the phylogeny of the vascular cryp- 

 togams that we believe that some of this evidence should be 

 re-examined in the light of the discovery of a truly sporangiophoric 

 Lepidophyte in the Carboniferous, and after a comprehensive dis- 

 cussion of the characters of this new genus as a whole w^e shall 

 devote some space to phyletic considerations. 



Material 



Lepidophyllum linearifolium Lesq., the first species of this group 

 to be recognized, was described in 1880 by Lesquereux (13) from 

 5 good representative specimens from Pittston, Pennsylvania, and 

 a fragmentary one, the nature of which is much in doubt, from 

 Cannelton, Pennsylvania, all in the Lacoe Collection now at the 

 United States National Museum,^ and it is to be deplored that the 



'Where, as in this case, there is slight discrepancy between the statement of 

 occurrence on the labels pasted to the specimens and that made by Lesquereux in 

 his Coal Flora, I shall record the former. 



