334 



CALAMARIEAE. 



their margins often appear to unite into a sheath. But close underneath 

 each leaf-whorl is a disk-shaped plate, the margin of which, though very 

 imperfectly preserved, is seen to be divided into obtuse lobes. Whether 

 this object really represents a free sheath, or whether the lobes spring as 

 duplicatures from the dorsal side of the single leaves in a similar manner 

 to that observed in Calamostachys mira or Palaeostachya gracilis, Ren., 

 are points on which Weiss himself does not speak very decidedly. From 

 Schenk's figures cited above, especially from the first of them, we should 

 perhaps incline to the latter supposition. 



Besides the remains of fructifications which have been discussed at 

 length in the preceding pages there are still a considerable number of 

 similar objects, which are described in the literature under a great variety 

 of names. So far as their inner structure is known, they are allied to the 

 types of Calamostachys and Palaeostachya. We must not attempt to 

 consider all these remains one by one ; we can obtain nothing either from 

 them or from the Macrostachyae or Paracalamostachyae, of which we know 

 the habit only, that can in any way add to our knowledge. Two of them, 

 which were found attached to their vegetative parts, will have to be noticed 

 again presently from this point of view ; here we need not go further into 

 them. One or two remains of impressions of very doubtful character may, 

 however, be mentioned here for completeness sake. These are Volkmannia 

 pseudoscssilis 1 and the analogous form Annularia brevifolia 2 , then Volk- 

 mannia effoliata 3 and lastly Volkmannia Morrisii 4 . A form, which might 

 be suitably named Paracalamostachys has been described by Goppert as 

 Aphyllostachys lugleriana. It would only be of interest, if, as Goppert 

 supposes, it really came from the Lias. But since it is not certainly known 

 where the specimen, which is in the Museum at Breslau, was found, though 

 it is said to have been picked up near Engern in Hanover, and might very 

 well come from the Coal-measures of Westphalia, as Goppert himself in- 

 timates after all, we need not for the present devote any attention to it. 



It remains still to notice a few essentially abnormal fructifications, 

 mentioned before as anomalous forms, of which the most important and 

 best-known is Cingularia typica 5 (Fig. 47). This is a very remark- 

 able fossil, found up to the present time, as far as I know, only at 

 Saarbrucken and St. Ingbert, but not infrequent in those localities and 

 occurring in seams of very different description. The long slender spikes 

 have a thread-like striated axis, with sterile and fertile whorls spread 

 out quite horizontally and closely approximated to one another in pairs. 

 In each pair of whorls the upper member is sterile, the lower fertile ; the 



1 Grand' Eury (1), t. 6, f. 3. " Schenk (2), p. 233, f. 12. 3 Grand' Eury (1), p. 41 ; 



t. 6, f. 2. * Hooker (5). 5 Weiss (6), p. 88 ; tt. 6-8 ; Schimper (1), t. 109, ff. 1-4 ; 



Stur (5), p. 149 (with figure). 



