On Cheirostrobus, a new Type of Fossil Cone. 417 



ner as difficult as in the presence of exclusively spinal mechanisms. 

 The reflex inhibitions the subject of this Note show, however, that the 

 accessibility is not really greatly or even at all altered ; the nexus is 

 maintained, but the conduction across it is signalised by a different 

 sign, minus instead of plus. The former, to find expression, must 

 predicate an already existent quantity of contraction tonus, to take 

 effect upon. It seems likely enough that even when the transection is 

 infrabulbar and merely spinal mechanisms remain in force, the same 

 nexus obtains, but that then that background of tonic contraction 

 is lacking, and that lacking the play of inhibitions remains invisible, 

 never coming within the field of any ordinary method of observation. 

 Under the conditions adopted in my experiments, various other 

 reflex actions, that seem probably examples of this same kind of co- 

 ordination, can be studied, for instance, a sudden depression arid 

 curving downward of the stiffly elevated and tonically up-curved tail 

 which can be elicited by a touch upon the perineum. But with these 

 and also with other details regarding the reflexes at elbow and knee 

 T hope to deal more fully in a paper to which the experiments re- 

 corded here are contributory. 



" On Cheirostrobus, a new Type of Fossil Cone from the Calci- 

 ferous Sandstone." By D. H. SCOTT, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., 

 Hon. Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Gardens, 

 Kew. Received December 29, 1896 Read January 21, 

 1897. 



The Peduncle. 



The first indication of the existence of the remarkable type of 

 fructification about to be described, was afforded by the study of a 

 specimen in the Williamson collection, from the well-known fossili- 

 ferous deposit at Pettycur, near Burntisland, belonging to the Calci- 

 ferous Sandstone Series at the base of the Carboniferous formation. 

 This specimen is a fragment of stem, of which seven sections are pre- 

 served in the collection.* Its discoverer thought it might possibly 

 belong to the Lepidostrobus found in the same bed. " If so," he ad.ds, 

 " it has been part of the axis of a somewhat larger strobilus than 

 those described." f 



A detailed examination of the structure of this specimen convinced 

 me that it is essentially different from any Lepidodendroid axis, and 

 is, certainly, anew type of stem.J 



* The cabinet-numbers are 539 545. 



t Williamson, " Organisation of the Fossil Plants of the Coal-measures." Part 

 III. ' Phil. Trans.,' 1872, p. 297. 



J A short account of this specimen was given by me before the Botanical Section 

 of the British Association at the Liverpool meeting, 1896. 



