16 



which they designate Cordaitece, and which they regard as 

 intermediate between Cycadeos and Taxinece. 



As restored on the basis of the French specimens, the typ- 

 ical Cordaites are simple or branching arboreal plants with 

 broad parallel-veined, more or less pointed, leaves attached 

 by a wide base to the stem, and leaving simple transverse 

 scars when removed. They bear spikes of nutlets, or large, 

 naked seeds, each subtended by a bract, and which are 

 usually lateral, though sometimes terminal. The stem has 

 a thick bark, composed of cellular tissue with bundles of 

 bast fibres, and the axis has an outer cylinder of porous tis- 

 sue, in wedges, with medullary rays, and an inner cylinder 

 of the slit-pored or transversely barred tissue, which I have 

 in previous papers designated by the term pseudo-scalari- 

 form, to distinguish it from the true scalariform-tissue, from 

 which it differs in having bars and pores only on two sides, 

 and in the apparent pores being of the nature of transverse- 

 ly elongated discs. It is very common in palaeozoic gym- 

 nosperms and exists in modern cycads. The pith is cellu- 

 lar with denser tabulae opposite the nodes of the stem giving 

 it the characters of the casts of pith known as Sternbergia or 

 Artisid. 



Leaves of Cordaites, spikes of fructification known as 

 Antholites, now often called Cordaianthus, fruits of the kind 

 formerly known as Cardiocarpwn, but now usually named 

 Cordaicarpum, occur somewhat plentifully from the Middle 

 Brian to the Permian. If however, we are to regard, all the 

 Cardiocarpa as seeds of Cordaites, it seems remarkable that 

 the species of these fruits should be so numerous in compari- 

 son with those of the leaves and stems. In the Middle Erian 

 of New Brunswick, I have recognised five species of Cardio- 

 carpum, besides Antholites and Trigonacarpa, and in the Car 

 boniferous of Nova Scotia, the disproportion, as compared 

 with stems and leaves, is still very great. This might per- 

 haps lead to the inference that many of the species of Cor- 

 daites belonged to the nigher grounds, and that only water- 

 borne seeds found their way into the aqueous deposits. This 

 would also serve to account for the fact that while leaves of 



