19 



Ordinary Meeting, December 2nd, 1884. 



Professor W. C. Williamson, LL.D., F.KS., President, 

 in the Chair. 



Tlie Peesident made some observations on the double 

 foliar fibro-vascular bundle supposed by M. Renault of Paris 

 to exist in Sigillaria, but to be absent from the leaf-scars 

 and Lepidodendron. He called attention to specimens of 

 Lepidodendron Harcourtii, recently obtained by him, which 

 exhibit most clearly the apparent presence of such a double 

 bundle, but he demonstrated that this appearance was merely 

 due to the separation of two parts of a single leaf-bundle 

 originally united by a mass of delicate phloem cells which 

 had disappeared. In the living plant these delicate cells 

 had separated the vascular string from a similar string of 

 sclerous cells resembling hard bast. These latter cells have 

 been so preserved as to give the appearance oi a second zylevi 

 bundle whereas they are merely one of the phloem tissues 

 belonging to the single bundle of which the vascular string 

 represents the true Zylem element. As seen on the leaf-scar 

 of an ordinary structureless Sigillaria the real nature of 

 these two structures would be unrecognisable. 



The President also exhibited a photograph of a fine speci- 

 men from the coal-measures of Dudley, in the rich collection 

 of Mr. Johnston of Dudley, in which a stem is surrounded 

 by a cluster of leaves, indentical with the Lepidophyllum 

 lanceolatum of Lindley and Hutton. This specimen was cor- 

 rectly recognised by Mr. Johnston as demonstrating the 

 Lepidodendroid character of this well known leaf 



Proceedings— Lit. & Phil. Soc— Vol. XXIV.— No. 3.— Session 1884-5. 



