LINNEAN SOCIEl'Y OF LONDON. ^^ 



Apart from these somewhat minute criticisms, it may be said 

 without any reserve that Hooker's work at once placed our know- 

 ledge of these cones on a perfectly satisfactory basis, leaving 

 indeed little, except the discovery of the megaspores, to be added 

 by later observers. 



He had no hesitation in referring the cones to Lepldodendron, on 

 the ground of association, and of the entire agreement between 

 the axis of the cone and the stem in the arrangenient of the 

 tissues. He considered that the only material difference from 

 the recent Li/copodiiim was in the form of the sporangium. He 

 emphasizes the clear Lycopodiaceous affinity and finally rejects the 

 vague suggestions of Cycadean or Coniferous relationship which 

 were still in the air. 



At the conclusion of the memoir, he gives some examples from 

 recent plants of false cones, often pathological, as a warning to the 

 student of fossils. Although his own Lepklostrohi were so perfectly 

 cleared up by his researches, he appears to have had some doubts 

 about other species, and was thus led to a characteristic mani- 

 festation of scepticism. 



The Lepidostrohus memoir shows how much fossil Botany might 

 have expected from Hooker, if he had continued to give his atten- 

 tion to the subject. This, however, was not in any high degree, 

 the case ; his subsequent activity was turned in other directions, 

 and his later paliBobotanical papers are, with one exception, of less 

 positive importance, though often interesting as critical contributions. 



Passing over a brief note on some doubtful Calamites, of Old Red 

 Sandstone Age, from the Shetland Islands (1852), Hooker's next 

 serious contribution to our knowledge of Palfeozoic Vasculares was 

 a memoir " On a new Species of Volkmaania " (1854). Sternberg's 

 genus VolJcmannia was long employed for various fructifications 

 which have turned out to be of Calamitean or Sphenophyllaceous 

 affinity. Hooker's species, V. Morrisii, from the Lower Carboni- 

 ferous of Carluke near Glasgow, is a fine cone, nearly 3 inches 

 long and more than an inch broad, the stalk having a length of 

 9 inches. Hooker says " the general resemblance to a gigantifc 

 Equisetum without sheaths is obvious," but adds " It is perhaps 

 not improbable that the genus may prove to be allied to Lepido- 

 dendron." Casuariueaj and Gnetaceic are also referred to. The 

 first suggestion is no doubt nearest the truth. As my friend 

 Dr. Arber suggested to me, the size and character of the cone invite 

 a comparison with Cheirostrobus, a fructification allied to the 

 ■SpheuophyllaceiB and so far only known from structural specimens. 

 Hooker felt the need for structural evidence in the case of his cone, 

 saying " No progress in systematic Botany can be made without an 

 extensive study of the structure and morphology of plants — of their 

 comparative anatomy in fact, and the materials for these researches 

 are seldom preserved in fossil specimens." 



The memoir with Binney, "On the Structure of certain Limestone 

 Nodules enclosed in seams of Bituminous Coal, with a Description 



LINN. SOC. PROCEEDINGS. — SESSION 1911-1912. d 



