118 



THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Returning to the more special subject of this work, I 

 may remark that the lepidodendroid trees and the ferns, 

 both the arborescent and herbaceous kinds, are even more 

 richly represented in the Carboniferous than in the pre- 

 ceding Erian. I must, however, content myself with 

 merely introducing a few representatives of some of 



the more common 

 kinds, in an ap- 

 pended note, and 

 here give a figure 

 of a well-known 

 Lower Carbonifer- 

 ous lepidodendron, 

 with its various 

 forms of leaf -bases, 

 and its foliage and 

 fruit (Fig. 43), and 

 a similar illustra- 

 tion of an allied 

 generic form, that 

 known as Lepido- 

 phloios* (Fig. 44). 

 Another group 

 which claims our 



FIG. 41. Beds associated with the main coal 

 (S. Joggins, Nova Scotia). 1, Shale and sand- 

 stone plants with Spirorbis attached; rain- 

 marks (?). (2, Sandstone and shale, eight 

 feet erect Calamites; 3, Grav sandstone, 

 seven feet ; 4, Gray shale, four feet an erect 

 coniferous (?) tree, rooted on the shale, passes 

 up through fifteen feet of the sandstones and 

 shale.) 5, Gray sandstone, four feet. 6, Gray 

 shale, six inches prostrate and erect trees, 

 with rootlets, leaves, JVaiadites, and Spiror- -. 

 bis on the plants. 7, Main coal-seam, five 

 feet of coal in two seams. 8, Underclay, with 

 rootlets. 



attention is that 

 of the Catamites. 

 These are tall, cy- 

 lindrical, branch- 

 stems, with 

 whorls of branch- 



lets, bearing needle- 

 like leaves and spreading in stools from the base, so as to 

 form dense thickets, like Southern cane-brakes (Fig. 46). 

 They bear, in habit of growth and fructification, a close 



* For full descriptions of these, see " Acadian Geology." 



