142 Transactions of the Society. 



plants which possessed it were, ipso facto, identified as seed-bearing 

 plants ; the only question which remained was to determine the 

 particular seeds which belonged to them, and on this quest much 

 ingenuity was expended. 



Brongniart's views were quite justified at the period when they 

 were first expressed, and we cannot perhaps wonder that he, the 

 greatest authority on everything relating to fossil plants, was un- 

 willing to give them up. Although evidence rapidly accumulated 

 showing that Palaeozoic Cryptogams, such as Lepidodendron among 

 Lycopods and Catamites among Equisetales, possessed secondary 

 wood. Eenault's loyalty to his great master prevented him, during 

 most of his scientific career, from accepting these results. He en- 

 deavoured to draw a sharp distinction between the true Cryptogams, 

 with which he classed Lepidodendron and Catamites, and the Phane- 

 rogams simulating them such as Sigillaria and Calamodendron. 

 If evidence was adduced to show that a Lepidodendron produced 

 secondary wood, Eenault denied that it was proved to be a 

 Lepidodendron, and transferred it to Sigillaria. A Calamite with 

 the same character was placed in the Phanerogamic genus 

 Anthropitys or Calamodendron. It so happened that our country- 

 man Williamson became the great champion of the Cryptogamic 

 nature of the Sigillarias and Calamodendreae, and ultimately proved 

 beyond doubt that the Lycopods and Equisetales of the Palaeozoic 

 generally possessed secondary wood, and were thus adapted to the 

 arborescent habit which they so commonly assumed. Hence a 

 warm controversy sprang up between the English school as repre- 

 sented by Williamson, and the French, among whom Eenault was 

 the leading spirit. 



M. Zeiller, in his obituary notice of Eenault (Zeiller, 1904) 

 says : " His interest in the Equisetineee and Lycopods was stimu- 

 lated by his disagreement with Williamson as to the position of 

 the Calamodendreae and Sigillaria?, in which the secondary wood, 

 centrifugally developed, seemed to him, as it did to Brongniart, to 

 constitute a Phanerogamic character." This view is strikingly 

 expressed, for example, in his Stigmaria memoir of 1882, where he 

 speaks of the phanerogamic characters of the Sigillarias as " already 

 established" by the structure of their vegetative organs. M. 

 Zeiller continues : " Owing to the very fact of this disagreement, 

 science has been enriched by admirable works from both sides, and 

 if the facts have appeared to confirm the opinion of Williamson, 

 the discoveries on the Pteridosperms recently made in England 

 have gone to show how well founded was Eenault's prescience, as 

 to the existence of forms, similar in their outward aspect to certain 

 types of Cryptogams, and yet belonging to Gymnosperms by their 

 fructifications." 



Eenault's views became considerably modified in his later years, 

 and he convinced himself (for he was very slow to be convinced by 



