VI. 



9 



DOLEROPHYLLUM, CANNOPHYLLITES, EPHEDRITES, GNE- 

 TOPSIS, SCHUTZIA, DICTYOTHALAMUS, CALATHIOPS. 



IN the present chapter we shall consider a few gymnospermous types 

 which are still imperfectly known and which seem to have little or no re- 

 lation to one another. 



The first to be noticed is the new and still very problematical genus 

 Dolerophyllum, Sap., which might very properly have been discussed in 

 connection with other forms, and to which I allow so much prominence 

 only because Saporta and Marion * treat it as quite securely established, 

 and make use of it for the most extravagant speculations. It is founded 

 on some peculiar bud-like objects long since known in a silicified state from 

 the Permian formation of Eastern Russia, which were named by Eichwald 2 

 Noggerathia Gopperti, and were till quite recently compared by Goppert 3 

 with inflorescence-buds of Musaceae 4 . Good figures of them are to be 

 found in the authors last named and in Saporta and Marion 5 . The stout 

 ovoid buds with a somewhat acute apex are formed of large probably 

 spirally disposed leaves, which follow closely upon and are rolled round 

 one another in the form of a sheath, and are traversed by numerous nerves 

 which run everywhere at right angles to the margin, and here and there are 

 forked. Goppert believed that he recognised on the cross fracture of these 

 convolute leaves a row of longitudinal air-passages, such as are often found 

 in Scitamineae ; but the result of Renault's investigations into the anatomy 

 of a specimen of this kind from the Ural is to show that this depends 

 entirely on the state of preservation, for the transverse section figured 

 by Saporta and Marion 6 from Renault's drawings proves that the leaf is 

 everywhere formed by uniform thin-walled parenchyma, within which the 

 bundles lie surrounded by parenchymatous sheaths. On the under side of 

 each bundle is a longitudinal row of large cells, which are declared by the 

 French authors to be gum-receptacles. The bundle itself is of peculiar 

 construction ; Saporta and Marion 7 say of it : ' it exhibits the duplicated 



1 Saporta et Marion (2). 2 Eichwald (1), vol. i, t. 18, ff. 1-3. 3 Goppert (3), t. 62, ff. 1-6. 

 1 Goppert (6). ' Saporta et Marion (2), p. 71. 6 Saporta et Marion (2), p. 73. 



7 Saporta et Marion (2). 



