S1GILLARIEAE. 



249 



inches high and nine inches thick at the base. Two other stems, also 

 figured in Goldenberg 1 , seem to have been longer and more cylindrical. 

 As they are broken across at the upper end, they have nothing to do with 

 the present question. We may also reserve for the succeeding chapter 

 any further notice of the many stumps of trees broken short off, and of the 

 bases of stems which are rooted in the ground and whose subterranean 

 organs have proved to be Stigmariae. They have become known to us 

 from very various parts of the Carboniferous formation. 



Every one who has collected much even on the refuse coal-heaps is sure 

 to have met with fragments of Sigillariae, in which the regularity of the 

 ribs and their leaf-cushions is seen to be completely disturbed over portions 

 of the surface. Closer examination shows that this is due to the presence 

 among the regular rows of 

 intrusive scars of a different 

 character, between which lie the 

 ribs in their normal condition, 

 except that they are slightly 

 curved and sinuous. Brong- 

 niart 2 had himself figured such 

 a piece of Sigillaria Knorrii, 

 though not a very marked 

 specimen of the kind, but he 

 saw in it only a casual ir- 

 regularity. Schimper 3 was the 

 first to give a full account of 

 the matter in describing his 

 Sigillaria Lalayana (Fig. 27), 

 and suggested that the organs 

 of fructification may have been 



Seated On these SCarS. There 

 much tO be Said for this 



s 



FIG. 27. Piece of the fruit-bearing .zone of a stem of ^Sigillaria 

 Lalayana, Schpr. from Lach in the Weilerthal (Vosges), showing 

 l ^ e rows f intercalated scars to which the cones must have been 

 attached. After Schimper in Zittel's Text-book. 



idea, since the plants have so 

 few branches and these organs mustJiave been attached somewhere, 

 and all later authors seem to have adopted it. Other good figures of 

 specimens of the kind will be found in Zeiller 4 , Renault 5 and Williamson 6 . 

 The shape of the scars in question varies ; it may be circular or elongate 

 and angular, and the point may be supposed to be unimportant since it 

 depends directly on the contact with adjoining scars and with the ribs which 

 bear them. They are in fact of circular form in Sigillaria spinulosa, the 



1 Goldenberg (1), t. 10, ff. 6, 7. 2 Brongniart (1), vol. i, p. 446, t. 162, f. 6. 3 Schimper 



(1), t. 67, f. 2, and (2), vol. ii, p. 204. 4 Zeiller (1). "Renault (1), vol. i. 6 Williamson 

 (1), n, t. 31, f. 58 (position reversed). 



