472 . Mr. Brown on an undescribed Fossil Fruit. 
In conclusion I have to state, that very recently (since the drawings were 
completed, and as well as the specimens seen by such of my friends as were 
interested in fossil botany) Dr. Joseph Hooker has detected in the sporangia 
of a species referred to Lepidostrobus sporules, and those also united in 
threes. There are still, however, characters which appear to me sufficient 
to distinguish that genus from the fossil here described. 
To the brief account here given of Triplosporite it is necessary to add a few 
remarks on some nearly-related fossils, chiefly Lepidostrobi, whose structure 
is now more completely known than it was when that account was submitted 
to the Society. 
On the affinities of Lepidostrobus to existing structures, respecting which 
various opinions have been held, it is unnecessary here to advert to any other 
than that of M. Brongniart, which is now very generally adopted, namely, that 
Lepidostrobus is the fructification of Lepidodendron, and that the existing 
family most nearly related to Lepidodendron is Lycopodiacew. The same view 
is in great part adopted in my paper. But I hesitated in absolutely referring 
Triplosporite to Lepidostrobus, from the very imperfect knowledge then 
possessed of the structure of that genus. The specimens of Lepidostrobus 
examined by M. Brongniart were so incomplete, that they suggested to him an 
erroneous view of the relation of the supposed sporangium to its supporting 
bractea, and of the contents of the sporangium itself they afforded him no 
information whatever, 
In concluding my account of Triplosporite, I noticed the then very recent- 
discovery of Spores in an admitted species of Lepidostrobus by Dr. Joseph 
Hooker, who, aware of the interest I took in everything relating to Triplo- 
Tu the sections and drawings of which he had seen, communicated to me 
à section of the specimen in which spores had been observed, but which in — 
other respects was so much altered by decomposition, that it afforded no 
satisfactory evidence of the mutual relation of the parts of the strobilus. The 
appearances however were such, that I hazarded the opinion of its being gene- 
ically different from Triplosporite, an opinion strengthened by M. Brongniart’s 
account of the origin of the sporangium 
