August 14, 1879] 



NA TURE 



375 



a Lanner Falcon {Fako lanaHus), East European, presented by 

 Lord Lilford, F.Z.S. ; a Wood 0\s\{Syrnium aluco), European, 

 presented by Capt. F. Lloyd ; two Vultiurine Guinea Fowls 

 (Numida vulturina), four Elliot's Guinea Fowls {Nuviida ellioti), 

 three Mitred Guinea Fowls (IVumiJa milrata) from East Africa, 

 deposited; a Pileated Jay (Cyanocorax fileata) from South 

 America, two Black Storks (Ciconia nigra), European, pur- 

 chased ; a Red-fronted Lemur {Lemur riififrons) from Mada- 

 gascar, a Tamandua Ant-eater (Tamandud tetradactyla) from 

 South America, a Black Hornbill (Buceros atratus) from West 

 Africa, four Specious Pigeons (Columba speciosd), a Banded 

 Tinamou (Crypturus nocHvagus) from South America, received 

 in exchange ; an Amherit Pheasant ( ThaumaUa amherstue), 

 three Fork-tailed Jungle Fowls (Callus furcatus), three Chilian 

 Pintails {Dafila spinicauda), seven Brazilian Teal (Querquedula 

 brasiliettsis), an Australian Wild Duck {Anas superciliosa), bred 

 in the Gardens. 



ON SPHENOPHYLLUM, ASTEROPHYLLITES, 

 AND CALAMITES^ 



T HAVE just received from Herr D. Stur an abstract of a me- 

 ■*• moir in which he announces that he has obtained a specimen 

 from the Carboniferous rocks in which he finds twigs of Astero- 

 phyllites and Sphenophyllum, forming the branches of the stem 

 of a Calamite, and that the strobili of Bruckmannice occur at the 

 ends of such of the branches as support Sphenophylloid leaves. 

 Herr D. Stur appears to regard Sphenophyllum as representing 

 the foliage of the fruiting twigs of the plant, whilst Asterophyl- 

 lites represents the ordinary vegetative foliage of the same plant. 



That this should be true, so far as regards the unity of Astero- 

 phyllites and Sphenophyllum is concerned, appears to me to be 

 most probable. As you are aware, I carefully investigated this 

 subject in Part V. of my series of memoirs "On the Organisa- 

 tion of the Fossil Plants of the Coal-Measures." Accepting the 

 conclusions of M. Renault, published in some of his valuable me- 

 moirs on the St. Etienne plants, as conclusive so far as Spheno- 

 phyllum is concerned, I showed that plants which are un- 

 doubtedly examples of Asterophyllites have stems the internal 

 structure of which is identical with that of IL Renault's Spheno- 

 phyllums. These facts led me to the inevitable conclusion that 

 the two genera were very closely allied to one another. In my 

 Memoir, Part IX., I described an additional specimen (Fig. 32), 

 which gave further support to my previously expressed opinion, 

 and the further investigations which I then conducted led me 

 unhesitatingly to afiirm "that Asterophyllites and Sphenophyl- 

 lum are genera so closely allied, that tkeir separate existence finds 

 but little justification in nature" (foe. cit., p. 334). In fact, it 

 has long appeared to me that, morphologically, the leaflet of 

 Spenophyllum was merely the resultant of the coalescence of 

 two or three leaflets of Asterophyllites. 



Herr D. Stur's discovery appears to afford an unanswerable 

 confirmation of these views. His further discovery of Volk- 

 mannioe ° connected with his plant, w hich combines Sphenophyl- 

 lum with Asterophyllites, further sustains a conclusion which I 

 have arrived at in my memoir, Part V., pp. 55-56, viz., " that 

 Calamostachys (Volkmaunia) binneyana has much closer affini- 

 ties with Asterophyllites than with Calamites" (loc. cit., p. 65). 



But Herr Stur further states that the stem from which these 

 Asterophyllitean and Sphenophylloid twigs spring is a Calamites 

 which he names Calamites sachsii. Not being acquainted with 

 the plant to which he gives this name, I can form no opinion as 

 to its nature ; but I must confess I find it impossible to believe 

 that it can be a Calamite of the common and only type which 

 we find in England. Both my memoirs, Part I. and Part IX., 



< This brief contribution was originally a letter to Prof. Weiss, of Berlin, 

 but it was kindly translated by him. and published in the Nruen yahrbuck 

 fMr Miueralo^ie, Gtgtogie und Fnldof.iologie, Jahrgang, 1I72, as a com- 

 munication, with the title of *' Sphenophyllum, Asterophyllites, und Cala- 

 mites, dercn Stellung xu cinander nach den letztcn Beobachtungen." It is 

 only republished now as being necessary to the understandiiig of Prof. 

 Wciss's interesting communicationi which he published along with mine, 

 and whick it appears to me desirable to republish for the Ijencnt of English 

 pala:o-l)olanists. 1 am indebted to my friend Mr. Hartog for its translation 

 into Knglish. 



'■* Herr Stur's Bmckmannia: appear to be that form of spike long desig- 

 nated Volkmanni;e, but now separated as Calamostachys, and of which the 

 Calanwltackys binm-yana is the only British example witll the internal 

 organis.ition of which wc arc ac luainted. 



contain a series of illustrations of the structure of our English 

 Calamites, from that of stems that must have been nearly half a 

 metre in diameter down to twigs having only a diameter of 

 ■000837 of a metre, which latter specimens are, I pre 

 sume, the most minute examples that have been recorded by 

 any observer. Yet all these graduated Calamites have ex- 

 actly, the same typical structure ; they possess an ample 

 medulla, which becomes fistular at an early age ; this is sur 

 rounded by a circle of longitudinal canals, which run from node 

 to node. External to each canal we find a corresponding wedge- 

 shaped niass of radiating vascular laminoe. These wedges are 

 widely separated, in young plants and branches, by large, radial 

 prolongations of the pith — the primary medullary rays of my 

 memoirs— but in older branches these rays dimini.sh in size, so 

 that the wedges become blended together at their broad sub- 

 cortical portions. These Zylem structures are enclosed within a 

 true Phloem, which is uniformly parenchymatous in its young 

 state, but which becomes differentiated into two or more layers, 

 as the plant grows older ; the chief of these layers, so far as size 

 is concerned, being a thick mass of prosenchyma. Now the 

 internal structure of Asterophyllites and Sphenophyllum difllers 

 from that of Calamites in every one of these features. The 

 youngest twigs, as well as the larger branches of these two 

 genera, are equally devoid of a medulla. The place occupied by 

 that cellular tissue in the young Calamite is filled, in equally 

 young twigs of Asterophyllites and Sphenophyllum by an exclu- 

 sively vascular bundle, transverse sections of which exhibit the 

 form of a remarkable triangle with three very concave sides. 

 There are no inter-nodal canals, and the vascular zone, which is 

 largely developed externally to the primary triangular vascular 

 bundle by an exogenous process of growth, is not divided into 

 separate wedges by large primary medullary rays. In Calamites 

 each vascular wedge is subdivided into lamina; by numerous, 

 perfectly developed, secondary medullary rays. In Asterophyllites 

 and Sphenophyllum, these rays are of the most rudimentary 

 character, though they exist, as my friend M. Renault has shown, 

 in the shape of groups of cells distributed through the vascular 

 zone.' 



I'he bark of the two genera in question is as distinct from that 

 of Calamites as are the medullary and Zylem portions of the 

 respective stems. It consists of two layers which have no 

 counterparts in the Phloem of Calamites. In addition to these 

 details, there is a general triquetrous arrangement in the or- 

 ganisation of Asterophyllites and Sphenophyllum, which has no 

 existence in Calamites. The foliar vascular bundles of the 

 former are only given off from the apex of each of the three pro- 

 longed angles of the central triangular bundle of the young twig, 

 whilst no one of the wedges forming the regular Zylem-cylinder 

 of the Calamite has any predominance over the rest. 



Such extreme and fundamental differences as these, affecting, 

 as they do, the structure of every layer of tissue from the centre to 

 the periphery of the axis, and at every stage of its growth, make it 

 absolutely impossible that Asterophyllites and Sphenophyllum 

 can be associated with any of the Calamites that are so abundant 

 in our English coal-measures, and with the organisation of which 

 we are now so perfectly acquainted. 



That the stem so long, but so improperly, associated with the 

 genus Calamites, viz., the Calamites verticillatus of Lindley and 

 Ilutton may have been the arborescent stem of these Sphenophyl- 

 loid plants is as I have shown in my Memoir, Part V., extremely 

 probable. But, I repeat, this stem has no claim whatever to be 

 included amongst the true Calamites. 



Such being the conclusions at which I have arrived from the 

 careful study of the inner structure of an enormous number of 

 stems of Calamites and Asterophyllites, and from a comparison 

 of these latter with the facts published in the valuable Memoirs 

 of M. Renault on Sphenophyllum, I shall look forward with 

 great interest to the results of a critical examination of the stem 

 which our fellow-labourer at Vienna has discovered. 



W. C. Williamson 



Further Remarks to the Preceding Treatise, by E. Weiss, Berlin 

 Stur's remarkable paper, to which the above communication 

 of Prof. Williamson, the esteemed investigator of Manchester, 

 refers, is the description of a slab on which several branches of 

 Asterophyllites give off, at certain points, lateral twigs with the 

 foliage of Sphenophyllum dichotomum, some of which bear 

 terminal spil^es of Volkmannia, Stur ; at other poinU he finds 

 ' So imperfect is the organisation of these medullary rays, that M. Renault 

 is not prepared to recognise their claim to the title, a point on which I am 

 obliged to d ffer from him. 



