LEPIDODENDREAE. 213 



the figure: 'after a figure of M. Goldenberg but put upright/ Stur too 

 has discussed this specimen and has sought support in it for his bulbil- 

 theory; he sees in the branches, which are all broken short off at the 

 margin of the plate, the bases of his brood-buds. I can myself see nothing 

 more in them than ordinary branches, which may perhaps have borne cones 

 on their extremities. The scars left by them on the stem appear from the 

 drawing to have been simple circles ; there is no sign of the cup-formation 

 which is produced by the base of the sessile cone in Ulodendron. If never- 

 theless I incline to regard them as stalks of fructifications and not as ordinary 

 lateral branches, it is solely because the separation from the stem seems 

 always to have been basal. Supposing them however to have been vege- 

 tative branches, we should then have in this specimen a case of exceptionally 

 copious lateral branching. It is also in favour of the view which we have 

 been advocating with respect to the direction of the pieces of stem of 

 Lepidophloios, that the so-called ligular pit can in almost all cases be seen in 

 well-preserved specimens on the two facets which are visible on the median 

 line; this is a point on which Stur 1 has specially insisted. This pit is dis- 

 tinctly shown in the figures in O. Feistmantel 2 , though he is not quite clear 

 in his own mind as to its meaning. Weiss 3 too has observed it and has 

 figured it with his usual accuracy. The specimens of Lepidophloiae which 

 have been preserved without the rind have been so little studied up to the 

 present time, that there is nothing definite to be said about them. Some of 

 them perhaps belong to the Bergeria-forms noticed above, and which are 

 still imperfectly understood. A specimen given by Lesquereux 4 as Lepido- 

 phloios obcordatus, Lesq. reminds us of Knorria ; it is partly covered with 

 the rind of coal, but in other places shows two-lobed protuberances, while 

 a small cone rises in the anterior sinus of the lobes. It may be observed in 

 conclusion that if the question of the distinction of species is a difficult one 

 in Lepidodendrae, it is much more difficult in Lepidophloiae. The size of 

 the leaf-cushions and the convexity of the anterior margin which bears the 

 scars vary greatly. In large stems the cushions may attain considerable 

 dimensions; in a piece before me which answers to one of Corda's 5 figures 

 I find the breadth to be sixteen millimetres. How far such differences may 

 be due to later growth maybe left undetermined ; they are referred to 

 this cause by Weiss, who virtually distinguishes the species by the form 

 of the scar. That growth of this kind helps to produce the variations in 

 question cannot be doubted, if we consider the colossal size of the stems 

 which have these broad leaf-bases. 



The genus Halonia, Ldl. and Hutt. is closely allied to Lepidophloios, 

 and Cyclocladia, Goldenberg not Ldl. and Hutt. is not distinct from 



1 Stur (5), t. 19. 2 O. Feistmantel (3), t. 33, f. i } and t. 34, f. 3. 3 Weiss (1), t. 15, f. 8 a. 

 4 Lesquereux (3), vol. ii, t. 41, f. i. 5 Corda (1), t. i. 



