ROOM I. -' CARBONIFEROUS FLORA. 43 



On the uppermost shelves are the Halonias; these fossils are 

 sandstone casts with a thin carbonaceous crust, of cylindrical 

 stems, which are beset with large elevated knobs or projections 

 disposed in quincunx ; these are not produced by the attach- 

 ment of petioles, but are sub-cortical protuberances : the bota- 

 nical affinities of these plants are not satisfactorily determined. 1 



iSternbergia ; Artesia. Case E. The fossil stems thus 

 labelled are on the shelves below the Halonise ; they are sup- 

 posed to be the carbonized medullary axis of a genus of plants 

 distinct from the Lepidodendra, and named Lepidophloios by 

 Count Sternberg. 2 



THE CARBONIFEROUS FLORA. Although there are vestiges 

 of many coniferous trees, and of some endogenous plants, in 

 the coal-strata, yet as the vegetables we have cursorily exa- 

 mined constitute the essential features of the flora of the 

 carboniferous epoch, a few general remarks on the subject will 

 not be irrelevant in this place. 



The peculiarity of this flora is the great number of the 

 vascular cryptogamous plants, which amount to two-thirds 

 of the species of vegetables discovered in the carboniferous 

 deposits. With these are associated a few palms, coniferee, 

 cycadeee, and some dicotyledons, allied to the cactese and 

 euphorbiacese. The magnitude and numerical preponderance 

 of plants analogous to the Ductulosce, but differing in 

 species and genera from existing forms, constitute, therefore, 

 the most striking botanical feature of the flora of this epoch. 

 Thus we have trees allied to the equisetaceee, thirty or forty 

 feet high, and eighteen inches or more in circumference 

 (Catamites) ; arborescent club-mosses (Lepidodendra), attain- 

 ing an altitude of sixty or seventy feet : and zamia-like 

 coniferse (Sigillarice), fifty feet high. Of these ancient 

 and extinct types, the latter tribe is especially remark- 

 able in consequence of the peculiar circumstances under 

 which the erect stems and roots occur, and which it will 

 here be necessary to consider, as the phenomenon is highly 

 interesting, and bears strongly on the question as to the 

 mode in which the tads of coal, clays, and shales, that 



1 Figured in " Medals of Creation," p. 150. 



2 See M. Brongniart's "Tableau de Veg. Foss." p. 43; "Pictorial 

 Atlas," Pi. XVIII. 



