﻿386 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



Count Solms-Laubach 1 we have another unique type of stem com- 

 bining filical and gymnospermic characters and referred by Doctor 

 Scott to the Cycadofilices, though gymnospermous characters pre- 

 dominate. Its secondary wood, of coniferous structure, contains a 

 large elliptical pith bordered by a continuous zone of primary wood 

 which is thicker and somewhat complex at the ends of the ellipse, 

 whence the leaf strands originate. This genus, on which Count 

 Solms founds a family, appears to the writer to resemble so closely 

 certain of the woods described as Dadoxylon (Cordaitcs) as to de- 

 mand a reexamination of some of the material showing secondary 

 wood only and referred by authors to the latter genus. 



Fossil plants petrified in such a way as to show their microscopical 

 structure are extremely rare in the Carboniferous series of this 

 country, and but few fragments excepting those of Dadoxylon and 

 Psaronius have come to light. Impressions or carbonized remains 

 are, however, as common in the Coal Measures of America, par- 

 ticularly in the Appalachian trough, as in other parts of the world. 

 Our knowledge of the Cycadofilices, so far as it proceeds from 

 American material, is based almost entirely on these carbonized 

 remains. 



Aneimites {Adiantites of authors). — The genus Aneimites is rep- 

 resented by several species in the basal Coal Measures of both 

 Europe and America, though no petrified specimens (having struc- 

 ture) of that genus are known, and until recently we have had no 

 clue to its fructification. Conclusive data relating to the latter have 

 been furnished by material from the lower Pottsville along New 

 river in southern West Virginia. The fronds, which are commonly 

 known as Adiantites, are tripinnate, with slender divisions of the 

 rachis and very deeply dissected cuneate pinnules and lobes, which, 

 as the early name for the genus implies, strongly resemble those of 

 Adiantum? The seeds, borne on dichotomous pedicels at the 

 periphery of the somewhat reduced fertile fronds, are small, about 

 .5 cm. long, rhomboidal, and vascularly striate, thinly lenticular in 

 transverse section, the outer envelope being laterally dilated, espe- 

 cially below the middle of the seed, so as to form a wing to the 

 fruit. The seed, seen in all stages of development, is deciduous at 

 maturity by abscission at the broadened apex of the pedicel. The 

 general characters, so far as recorded by the impressions, appear in 

 the main to be conformable to the primitive types of gymnosperms. 



1 Bot. Zeitung, 1893, P- 197- 



2 See Smithsonian Miscell. Colls., Quarterly Issue, vol. 47, pt. 3, p. 322, pi. 



XLVIII. 



