i8o3. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 417 



of several corollas, apparently flattened out and united by their margins. 

 The free border of the tube showed lobes and other signs of a 

 composite nature. Within the cup were the stamens in a single row, 

 very numerous, quite free, and surrounding a club-shaped expansion 

 of the axis which occupied the centre of the flower-head. This dilata- 

 tion was solid and undivided below, but above gave off a number of 

 deltoid processes, " which doubtless represent bracts or palese." In 

 no case, says the writer, was there any trace of styles, ovary, or ovule, 

 except in the ray-floret, which enclosed a two-lobed style as usual. 

 One is tempted, however, to suggest from Dr. Masters's figures and 

 description, that the central head of " bracts or paleac " might repre- 

 sent the carpels, which have, like the corolla and stamens, become 

 aggregated and then also leafy in character. 



It is saying a great deal for the rarity of this phenomenon when 

 Dr. Masters admits that he has never before observed such a case in 

 the family of Compositae. The nearest approach is a very common 

 malformation of the foxglove, where the corollas of the flowers in the 

 upper part of the raceme are blended into one terminal cup. 



Lepidostrobus. 



Professor F. O. Bower has been examining in the light of recent 

 advances in Palaeophytology the structure of the axis of the cone of 

 Lepidostrobus Brownii. This fine fossil specimen, preserved in the 

 British Museum, was the subject of a paper, by Robert Brown, in 

 vol. xx. of the Linnean Society's Transactions, where the author, as 

 Professor Bower points out in his communication to the Annals of 

 Botany (vol. vii., no. 27), described details of great importance in 

 classification which have been neglected by subsequent workers. In 

 the paper now before us, attention is called to the close correspon- 

 dence of the tissues to those of Psilotum, both as regards arrangement 

 and structure ; while in the stellate, connected central xylem, the 

 fossil bears a certain resemblance not only to the Psilotaceae but also 

 to species of Lycopodium and Selaginella. As the author has recently 

 demonstrated points of similarity between the sporangia of the 

 fossil genus Lepidodendron and those of Tmesipteris, this correspondence 

 in internal anatomy between Lepidostrobus and the Psilotaceae 

 becomes especially interesting. 



In a comparison of the cortex of living Lycopods and Psilotaceae, 

 of the Lepidostrobus and stems of Lepidodendron, the author shows that 

 while considerable variety of detail is manifested, it is possible to 

 match the different types of structure found in the fossils with similar 

 characters in closely-allied living forms. He also concludes, by a 

 consideration of another set of examples, that the well-known 

 trabecular development in Selaginella, traces of which also occur in 

 Lepidostrobus, is a specialised and more definite example of that 



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