io8 CORDA1TEAE. 



Branches of Cordaiteae stripped of their leaves are frequently found 

 at St. Etienne in the beds which are filled with leaves. Specimens with 

 these leaves still attached to them are however rare. Little attention seems 

 to have been paid to them in other places. They occur as impressions or 

 flattened casts covered with a rind of glistening coal, and with the leaf-scars 

 in some cases still apparent on their surface. Numerous specimens of such 

 portions of branches have been figured by Grand' Eury 1 . These scars, 

 in correspondence with the contraction of the bases of the leaves, are 

 elliptical on the transverse section and of no great breadth, and where the 

 preservation is particularly good, they show a transverse row of dot-like 

 vascular bundle-traces. They are placed, as in our pines, on the summit 

 of semicylindrical leaf-cushions which are decurrent on the branch, and 

 which flatten out more or less quickly and disappear. That the branches 

 really belong to Cordaites is proved by some drawings of Grand' Eury, in 

 which they are still covered with the leaves and even bear inflorescences. 

 Some care is required in judging of these figures, for the author often gives 

 us reconstructions which he does not always distinguish quite clearly from 

 the portions drawn from nature. For this reason I can only cite one figure 

 as decisive, that of C. alloidius 2 , Grand' Eury, which is described at length 

 and satisfactorily in the text. In the lower part of this leafy branchlet the 

 scars are crowded close to one another, giving to the surface the appearance 

 of Lepidodendron ; in the upper part they are widely separated through 

 the elongation of the internodcs. Apart from Grand' Eury's drawings, the 

 tufts of leaves of Cordaites and the branches which bear them are very 

 sparingly figured in the literature. The oldest figure is the one in Stern- 

 berg's work 3 , which however only shows a number of leaves converging 

 downwards with their bases broken off. It is the figure of Flabellaria 

 borassifolia, and is taken from a specimen found at Radnitz in Bohemia. 

 Germar 4 next describes the upper extremity of a branch thickly covered 

 with leaves as Flabellaria principalis. Then Corda 5 figures a splendid 

 leafy branch under the name of Flabellaria borassifolia, Stbg ; the anatomical 

 drawings in the next plate can hardly belong to this species. Goppert 6 

 gives an account of a very leafy branch named Noggerathia palmaeformis, 

 Gopp. All these figures are to be referred to the type Cordaites of Grand' 

 Eury ; on the other hand, the fine specimen from the Goldberg collection, 

 figured by Weiss 7 and named Cordaites microstachys, Weiss, belongs to 

 Poacordaites, and is considered by Grand' Eury to be his P. linearis. 

 Some at least of the many beautiful branches figured by Lesquereux 8 may 

 belong to this type. Closed leaf-buds also have been found at St. Etienne 



1 Grand' Eury (1), tt. 27, 28. a Grand' Eury (1), t. 21, f. 8. s Sternberg, Graf von (1), 



Heft 1-5, t. 18. 4 Germar (1), t. 23, f. 5. 5 Corda (1), tt. 24, 25. Goppert (12), t. 15. 



7 Weiss (1), p. 195. ' Lesquereux (1). 



