68 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



from the Lepidodendra, and on Lepidophloios. In some species, especially- 

 of the latter genus, these scars are seen from their form to represent 

 sessile cones, usually of large size ; but in other cases they arc merely 

 round marks, as if indicating^the insertion of branches or buds. The 

 little fertile branchlets of L. Ciftonense, which would probably die after 

 the maturity of the fruit, would leave such scars, and may probably 

 account for some of the less intelligible of them. 



'•If now we compare our two species above described with others 

 found in America and Europe, and most of which are characterized 

 merely by the forms of the leaf-bases and scars, we may exclude from 

 consideration all those in which the leaf-bases do not expand in growth, 

 and confine ourselves to those having living and expanding leaf-bases. At 

 first sight we might imagine that these would be the oldest, as being simpler 

 than the others in structure ; but though some of the Erian or Devonian 

 species are probably of this type, in the lower Carboniferous, Avhere the 

 Lepidodendra first became important, the species with leaf-bases sej^arated 

 by wrinkled bark or by expansion of the cortical tissues between the 

 leaf-bases are apparently predominant, though others also exist, and the 

 type which we are now considering perhaps culminates in the Coal For- 

 mation. 



" We may first refer^to i. costatum of Lesquereiix, with vertical rows 

 of corrugated leaf-bases, but separated by distinct longitudinal spaces of 

 wrinkled bark. This is a Lower Carboniferous species, and is compared 

 by Lesquereux with his L. Brittsi and with L. Volkmannianum, Stern- 

 berg, of the European Carboniferous, both of which have strong points of 

 resemblance in the characters of the leaf-bases, though diftering in the 

 scars and in the leaves, so far as known. The Jj. Wortheni of Lesquereux 

 is based on fragments closely allied in general form to our species. So 

 also is i. diplostegioides, a species found in the lower coals as far west as 

 Arkansas. None of these si^ecies are, I think, sufficiently near to be 

 identified with our Newfoundland and Nova Scotia species, though as 

 most of them are known only by tl'.e bark of old stems, this may admit of 

 doubt. In any case, Lepidodendra of this general type and aspect were 

 widely distributed, both in Europe and America, in the Carboniferous, 

 and es}»ecially in the lower portions of the Coal Formation, to which in alL 

 probability the Newfoundland specimens belong. 



" r may add here that Zeiller ' figures a species as L. Veltheimianum, 

 which can scarcely be that species, and may be a bi'anch of i. Murray- 

 anum, with which it agrees very closely. The same plant is figured by 

 Eena^lt. '^ The leaf-bases of the Newfoundland species have also some 

 resemblance to those of X. aculeatum, Sternberg, but differ in detail. 



"Another interesting question rises here as to the limits oï Lepldodend- 

 ron SiyiUaria, as determined by their surface markings. The markings of 



1 Végétaux fossiles du Terrain Houiller, 1880, pi. xxii. 

 ■■^ Cours de Botanique Fos^^ile, 1!-81, p]. v, fjg. 2. 



