238 LEPIDODENDREAE. 



cone, which is eleven centimetres in length and five centimetres in breadth, 

 is injured by abrasion, the points of the leaves are gone, and a roundish pro- 

 tuberance corresponds to the extremity of each sporophyll. The sporangia 

 filled with globular macrospores are replaced in the upper part of the cone 

 for about two-fifths of its length by microsporangia, the spores of which are 

 connected together in fours. Nothing can be learnt about the character of 

 the axis from Schimper's l or Renault's 2 figures ; it may have been destroyed 

 in a great measure by the longitudinal section. There is great resemblance 

 between Lepidostrobus Dabadianus and two fragments of unknown origin, 

 which have only microspores connected together in tetrads in their sporangia, 

 and which were united bySchimper 3 under the name of Lepidostrobus Brownii. 

 One of them passed some time since from the collection of Baron Roger 

 at Paris into the British Museum, and a transverse section of it is in the 

 Paris Museum. It was described and figured by R. Brown 4 under the 

 name Triplosporites. The other specimen, one half of which is in the 

 British Museum, the other in the collection of the Jardin des plantes at 

 Paris, was originally purchased at a curiosily-shop in Paris, and was long 

 in Schimper's possession. The structure of both these specimens agrees 

 perfectly with that of Lepidostrobus Dabadianus, and the abrasion of its 

 surface is still greater (Fig. 25 A, B}. The axial strand which is sur- 

 rounded by numerous transverse sections of leaf-traces has the structure 

 of Lepidodendron Harcourtii. Another similar small fragment of a cone 

 containing only microspore-tetrads was found near Cabrieres in the depart- 

 ment of HeVault and was described as Lepidostrobus Rouvillei 5 . Two 

 fragments of the kind showing in their axes the type of Harcourtii, and 

 both coming from the calcareous nodules of Oldham, have been figured by 

 Binney G , and a number of broken pieces of cones have been described by 

 Hooker 7 . The latter came from the Carboniferous ironstone of Wolver- 

 hampton near Birmingham, and some of them were found inside stems of 

 Lepidodendron which have the bark still well preserved, having been con- 

 veyed into them by the action of water. From specimens now in the 

 Jermyn Street Museum in London I have been able to satisfy myself, that 

 in some cases the axiJe strand of the hollow stem is still present, and shows 

 the structure of Lepidodendron vasculare. The same structure is also 

 apparent in the axis of one of the cones, in the rest the central portions are 

 too imperfectly preserved. The structure and character of the stems and 

 of the fructifications inclosed in them have been illustrated by extraordinary 

 drawings. In some specimens the shortly lanceolate leaf-tips are preserved. 



1 Schimper (1), t. 62, ff. i-ra and (2), vol. ii, p. 191. * Renault (2), .vol. ii, t. 6, ff. 9-12. 



3 Schimper (1), vol. ii, pt. i, p. 67 ; t. 62, ff. 13-33. 4 R - Brown (1). * Saporta et 



Marion (3), p. 193 ; Renault (2), vol. ii, p. 35, t. 7, ff. 1-3. 6 Binney (1), m, tt. 7, 8. 

 7 Hooker (8). 



