58 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. [^Turnai^liT'i^i^Ta' 



were an outer series of twenty smaller pyriform apertures diverging 

 obliquely in pairs from each of tlie ten larger ones. At the outer 

 angle of each smaller aperture a sporangiophore ascended almost 

 vertically into the cavity of the strobilus, being nearly parallel wath 

 the central axis. This sporangiojihore sujiported three or four 

 sporangia grouped around it in a horizontal verticil, the horizontal 

 section of the entire strobilus consisting of a circle of these smaller 

 sporangial verticils, which were so densely packed together as to 

 disturb and mask the regularity of their arrangement. Having given 

 off these sporangiophores with the reproductive organs which they 

 supj)orted, the verticillate foliar disk dijjped suddenly downwards, 

 and, describing a circular curve, as suddenly outwards and upwards, 

 where it terminated in a verticil of numerous ovato-lanceolate bracts, 

 which enclosed the exterior of the segment to which they belonged 

 and protected the contained sporangia. The author pointed out 

 where the strobilus differed from those described by Binney and 

 Carruthers. In the former each node gave off a horizontal verticil of 

 coalesced bracts, from the centre of which a series of sporangiophores 

 ascended as vertical divergent branches, whilst in the latter there was 

 an alternating arrangement, one node giving off the disk of coalesced 

 bracts, and the next a verticil of sporangiojihores springing at right 

 angles from the central axis, and having their respective sporangio- 

 phores chistered round them in perpendicular verticils. In the 

 author's example the sporangiophores were densely filled with spores, 

 each consisting of an outer cell-wall, an inner cell-membrane or 

 primordial utricle, and cell contents which were often aggregated into 

 a distinctly defined mass in the centre of the cell. There were no 

 traces of elaters connected with the sj)ores. 



The author j)ointed out that in its general aspect and in the type 

 of its structure the strobilus was unmistakably Calamitean — the pecu- 

 liarity in the position of its sj)orangiophores being merely generic. 

 Its Calamitean character was further established by the peculiar 

 arched arrangement of the vascular bundles where they cross the 

 nodes — an arrangement which the author has never seen except in 

 Calamites. All the detailed features of the strobilus distingiiish it 

 from those described by Binney and Carruthers, and especially the 

 fact that, whilst in all the latter the vascular structures are scalari- 

 form as in the stems to which they are supposed to belong, in this 

 example the vessels are reticulated. But the only Calamitean ex- 

 ample hitherto discovered containing such vessels is that described by 

 the author under the name of Calamopitus, to which, or to some near 

 ally of it, he believes the strobilus to have belonged. If this be a 

 correct conclusion, the plant furnishes an instance derived from the 

 carboniferous vegetation of a highly-organized axis, exogenous in its 

 growth and furnished with medullary rays, but which nevertheless 

 sitstaincd a cryptogamic strobilus. Such a combination, however, is 

 but a lu'imneval illustration of a combination still existing amongst 

 the living Marsileacefe, with which Calamites present some afiinities. 

 The specimen described was found by Mr. Butterworth in one of the 

 lower beds of the Lancashire coal-measures. 



