CARBONIFEROUS LYCOPODS AND SPHENOPHYLLS. 81 



finds them still attached. It is to those latter, very different 

 from the first, that I have applied the name of Stigmariopsis. 1 



"The true Stigmaria are the rhizomes, which, having been 

 incapable of supporting themselves, have floated on the water or 

 crept in the mud, which they have also penetrated. These 

 aquatic and creeping plants are generally unconnected with any 

 stem. They are bifurcated, and provided with simple, rarely 

 bifurcated appendicular organs radiating all round the stem, 

 which circumstance proves that they lie in the place of their 

 birth. Only once have I found them diverging from a centre 

 without a stem. I have seen them also, but with great rarity, 

 associated with bulbs, or giving rise (ebauches) to stems of 

 Siyillaria, only at La Trouche and in the Gagnieres bed, and 

 still, although these /Stigmaria are connected by various inter- 

 mediaries to the Sigillaria, one may hold for certain that in the 

 interior of the 'geogenique' basin the rhizomes develop them- 

 selves without stem at the bottom of the water or in the mud. 

 These are the true Stigmaria, which I proceed first to consider 

 and describe, having examined the relationship which they present 

 with the Sigillaria at the edge of the basin of deposit of the 

 fossil forests. 



" Very similar opinions are expressed by Renault in one of his 

 later works. 2 Under the name of Stigmaria one designates the 

 much-developed appendages which go from the base of the stems 

 of Sigillaria, sometimes in a downward direction, when they 

 rapidly decrease in diameter, at other times extending horizontally 

 in all directions, and preserving in this case an observably regular 

 size. 



" The first would be the true roots of Sigillaria, the second a kind 

 of rhizome or stolon, radiating in great numbers around its stem, 

 floating in the shallow water or on the surface of the mud until 

 the bud-bearing terminal extremity may develop a root and 

 supply a stem to a new plant." 



1 Though I retain Stigmariopsis as a distinct genus, I do so only on 

 account of structural differences first pointed out by Solms-Laubach. not 

 on supposed developmental differences. 



2 Etudes sur le terrain houilltr de Oomentry. Livre Deux. Flore fossile. 

 Deuxieme partie. Saint fitienne, 1890, p. 549. 



