48 PAL^ONTOLOGICAL BOTANY. 



oblong, or lanceolate cavities (Fig. 39) in the centre of slight 

 tubercles, arranged more or less regularly in a quincuncial 

 manner (Plate III. Fig. 7). The canities occasionally present 

 a radiating appearance. The axis of the fragments is often 

 hollow, and different in texture from the parts around. This 

 axis consists of a vascular cylinder or woody system, penetrated 

 by quincuncially arranged meshes or openings, through which 

 the vascular bundles proceed from the inner surface of the 

 cylinder to the rootlets (Plate III. Figs. 8 and 9). From the 

 scars and tubercles arise long ribbon-shaped processes, which 

 were cylindrical cellular roots, now compressed (Fig. 38). The 

 vascular cylinder of Stigmaria is composed entirely of scalari- 

 form tissue, pierced by meshes for the passage, from the inner 

 surface of the cylinder, of the vascular bundles which supply 

 the rootlets. (Carruthers in Geol. Proc, Aug. 1869.) Stig- 

 maria ficoides (Fig. 38) abounds in the under-clay of a coal- 

 seam, sending out numerous roots from its tubercles, and 

 pushing up its aerial stem, in the form of a fluted Sigillaria. 

 On the Bolton and Manchester Railway Mr. Binney dis- 

 covered Sigillarias standing erect, and evidently connected 

 with Stigmarias which extended 20 feet or more.* Stigmaria 

 is regarded by Schimper as roots, not of Sigillaria only, but 

 of Knorria longifolia (one of the Lepidodendreas). The base 

 of the stem of this species of Knorria is Ancestrophyllum, and 

 the upper part is Didymophyllum Schottini of Goeppert. Pro- 

 fessor King and others suppose that the Fem-like frond called 

 Neuropteris is connected with Sigillaria, but this is a mere 

 conjecture, set aside by the discovery of leaves attached to a 

 species allied to Sigillaria elegans, which establishes that the 

 long linear leaves described under the name Cyperites are the 

 foliage of this genus. Goldenberg has figured the fructifica- 

 tion, which consists of small sporangia like those of Fleming- 



* The imbedding of plants in an erect state in strata is similar to 

 what was noticed at the present day by Gardner in Brazil, where 

 stems of recent Coco-nut Palms were seen covered with sand to the 

 depth of 50 feet. 



