Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlv. (1901), No. Tf. 3 



which was about three inches in diameter, and very finely 

 ground by Mr. James Binns. The original block was 

 from the Halifax Hard Bed, and Mr. Cash is under the 

 impression that he collected it at the Cinder Hill Pit, near 

 Halifax. 



A cursory examination of the preparations would not 

 lead one to expect a very good state of preservation, as 

 only a portion of the stem is preserved. But, as will be 

 seen on closer examination, all its tissues are most wonder- 

 fully intact. The presence in the mid-cortex of innumerable 

 well-preserved fungal filaments might seem hardly in 

 accord with the undamaged condition of the tissues, but 

 the fact that the delicate cells of this cortical region are 

 practically uninjured leads me to suppose that the fungus 

 was a parasitic and not a saprophytic form. 



Fz£: I {Plate i) shows a portion of section No. 645 A, 

 which, being very thinly ground at this point, shows 

 very clearly the excellent preservation of the tissues. In 

 the bottom left hand corner is seen a portion of the 

 primary wood, with the smaller protoxylem elements near 

 the periphery. Separated from this by a crack is the 

 secondary tissue, consisting of more or less regular rows 

 of apparently parenchymatous cells, an appearance very 

 typical of Lepidophloios fuliginosus. The presence of this 

 secondary tissue shows that the stem had arrived at some 

 state of maturity. A number of leaftrace bundles pass 

 through the secondary tissue, which is bounded on the 

 outside by a very clear and sharply defined layer of cells 

 which have generally been indentified as a secondary 

 meristem, though differing in many respects from the 

 cambium of recent plants and also from the cambium 

 of other fossil cryptogams. This clearly defined layer 

 of cells is not infrequently well preserved in this species, 

 and gives us very distinctly the inner boundary of the 



