82 ON THE FOSSIL FLOEA OF THE COAL DEPOSITS OF AUSTRALIA, 



Order II. Calamite^e. Brongniart. 



This order is distinguished from the Equisetacege by the verti- 

 cillate leaves entirely free or confluent at their base, and by the 

 sporangiferous spikes being axillary like those of Lycopods. Some 

 of the genera of this order have been named and classified in the 

 early history of paleontology from fragmentary fossils, but as 

 investigation has gone on, better and more numerous specimens 

 were discovered, and just as in the case of the different portions of 

 the Lejridodendron genus, they have proved to be different portions 

 of the same plants. Thus Ettingshausen has proved that Astero- 

 2)hyllites are the branches and branchlets of Catamites, and the 

 spikes known under the name of Volhnannia are the fruit bearing 

 portions of the same genus. It is to Mr. Binney, of Manchester* 

 that we owe the knowledge that the capsules enclosed in the spikes 

 are not anthers, but sporangia. 



Calamites. — Suckow (including Catamites, Equisetites (in part), 

 Astero2)hyllites, Volhnannia, Bechera, Bruchnannia, Bornia, of 

 Sternberg and Goeppert, and the Calamites, Equisetites, (part), 

 Calamodendron, Astevopliyllites, of Brongniart, Bunbury, Binney, 

 Dawson, and others. 



Tree-like plants, rising from a subterranean rhizome, stem simple, 

 somewhat conical, jointed and gradually narrowed, branches in 

 whorls, with forked branchlets. Bark smooth, or more or less 

 distinctly sulcate, internodes of varying length, but generally 

 shorter as they descend. Inner lining always sulcate and con- 

 stricted at the joints. Internal structure similar to Equisetum. 

 Cauline leaves extremely fugacious, wholly unknown but usually 

 represented by minute, convex, ovate scars on the inner 

 wood. Branch leaves longer and more numerous than the 

 cauline, of equal length, free or confluent at the base, linear or 

 narrowed or slightly dilated above, acuminate, ribbed, entire, 

 sub-erect, or reflexed. Sporangiferous spikes, verticillate from the 

 axils of the leaves, disposed in corymbs along the branches or at 

 their extremities, oblong or elongately cylindrical, small for the 

 size of the plant. Bracts, alternating with the sporangia, ver- 

 ticillate, lanceolate, erect above, below uniting into a disk. 



