34 SPHENOrHYLLUM. 



hesitation, to a Calamitean stem. Fronds of Glossopteris are 

 associated. 



Vereeniging, Transvaal. Pres. by D. Draper, Esq., 1897. 



V. 2418. Four specimens showing small fragments of Eqiusetalean 

 stems. 



Beaufort Series (?), East London, Cape Colony. 



Class SPHENOPHYLLALES. 



The characters of the class Sphmophyllales are those of the 

 isolated genus Sphenophyllum. The Lower Carboniferous genus 

 Cheirostrobus may perhaps he also included in this class. 



Genus SPHENOPHYLLUM, Brongniart, 1822. 

 [Mem. Mus. d'Hist. Nat., vol. viii, pp. 209, 234.] 



Plants with slender stems, possibly climbing plants of ' scrambling ' 

 habit ; stems articulated, usually tumid at the nodes, internodes 

 ribbed, ribs not alternating at the nodes. Branches arising 

 occasionally at the node, but only one branch from any one node. 

 Leaves whorled, often dimorphic, varying in length and shape, 

 often cuneiform, entire, or much divided into linear segments. 

 Leaves of the whorl equal, or unequal in size, usually, but not 

 always, six, or some multiple of three in number, free from one 

 another at point of attachment ; successive whorls of leaves 

 superposed. Cones long and narrow, terminal or lateral, composed 

 of numerous bracts fused basally into a saucer-like collar round 

 the axis, and bearing sporangia, either sessile or stalked, on their 

 upper surface. 



Brongniart originally described this genus under the name 

 Sphenophyllites, which he later changed to Sphenophyllum? 



Sphenophyllum is a characteristic member of the Carboniferous 

 and Permian floras of the Northern Hemisphere, but it also occurs 

 in association with the Glossopteris flora in India and South Africa. 

 The Indian species differs in certain respects from the majority of 

 those occurring in Europe, especially in the fact that the leaves of 

 the whorl are arranged in three pairs of unequal size. It was this 



1 Brongniart (28'), p. 68. 



