8 NOTICE OF A FOSSIL LYCOPODIACEOUS FRUIT. 
there can be no doubt, considering the group of plants to which they 
are related, that they have been obtained from deposits quei 
with the Coal or Red Sandstone formations. 
Robert Brown, in his memoir, has not given any specific name to 
the plant he has described; but the establishment of its generic value, 
and the probability that other forms of the same genus will be found, 
induce me to perpetuate the memory of his important observations by. 
naming this species Triplosporites Brownii. 
I ought, in conclusion, to remark, that this very perfect specimen 
which I have described probably represents a spike not fully developed. 
Two things seem to indicate this : first, the microspores are, in almost 
all the sporangia that contain them, immersed in an opaque granular 
substance in which they show themselves by their transparency, and 
which appears like the cellular plasma that surrounds these organs be- 
fore maturity ; second, the vessels which form the very distinct bundles 
in the axis of the cone, show only transverse strie or very indistinct 
rings, and not the decided lines of adult scalaridiform vessels. 
This immature condition has, perhaps, favoured the beautiful pre- 
servation of these fossils; but it is possible, and even probable, that 
the microspores and macrospores, when completely e would 
present some differences, which need not be considered as proceeding 
from a really distinct. organization. Some of the spores forming the 
triple mierospore seem already disposed to isolate themselves, and 
might, perhaps, take the trigonal form indicated by Dr. Hooker in’ the 
spores of Lepidostrobus. Some of the macrospores seem also to pre- 
sent in the interior a more complicated structure, which may indicate a 
tendency towards the appearance on the trigonal summit of the macro- 
spores of Isoëtes. 
New specimens, even simple fragments, but in a different stage of 
development, may turn up to complete our knowledge; but now the 
existence of gigantic Lycopodiacee, more completely correlated with 
living forms of the Order, is indubitably established. 
