ON APHYLLOSTACHYS. 229 
If, as I believe, nothing can be said against the correctness of these 
views,— based, as they are, not upon conjecture or mere examination 
of external appearances (most deceptive in fossil plants), but upon in- 
ternal structural differences, — one is at a loss to comprehend how all 
these very different organic forms can have descended in a direct line 
from each other, and, as a necessary consequence of such a theory, from 
one primordial form ; or how they can have developed into the present 
diversified forms of life by undergoing a constant mutation of here- 
ditary peculiarities, by individual variations, by struggles for existence, 
and by natural selection, — the principal dogmas of the Darwinian theory. 
Under these circumstances, it will be granted that the doctrine of trans- 
mutation receives no more support from the fossil flora than it does 
(as Reuss has shown most convincingly) from the fossil fauna. 
I now add the description of the plant which has led to the above 
remarks : 
Apiiyllostachys, raiU (Ordo Calamarim, Encll). Caulis fructi- 
gerus articulatus, inter articulos striatus,fortasse angulatus. Fructificatio 
verticillato-spicata, aphylla. Spicse suboctonae, lato-lineares, obtusatas, 
pedunculatse,internodiis paulo breviores,e sedecim circiter verticillis com- 
posite, pedunculis basi in strias longitudinales parallelas decurrentibus. 
Capsular oblongo-quadratse, in series approximates horizontales (hand 
ernantes) disposit;v, cum iisdem serierum infra ct supra positarum 
alternantes, nunc bracteis uti videtur haud plane destitute. Species 
u mca : Apiiyllostachys Jitgleriaua. 
Locality : Enger, in Hanover. From a bed, probably belonging to 
the Lias. 
%• 1 represents the fossil of the natural size. It consists of a 
series of fruit-spikes compressed and imperfectly preserved, and ar- 
ranged in verticils. The rapidly decreasing size of the spikes in an 
upward direction seems to indicate that this is only the upper portion 
of the complete inflorescence. On the lower portion of the slab at a 
are to be seen traces of the spikes of a lower verticil, and on the 
u PPer portion at b the bases of the spikes of an upper verticil can be 
detected. Each verticil contains 8 or 9 spikes, which are linear-eylin- 
(ln cal and somewhat rounded towards the apex, 5 to 6 lines long, and 
H to 2 lines broad, narrowed below into a broadish, longitudinally- 
stl "iated, evidently somewhat compressed, short peduncle. (Fig. 1, c.) 
alt 
