ON THE FOSSIL TREES IN A MARL PIT AT HANLEY. 83 



tween them is occupied by wedge-shaped masses of tubes, 

 or elongated utricles arranged in radiating series." This 

 structure, he says, clearly proves that stigmaria is the root 

 of sigillaria. So much for stigmaria. Sigillaria he de- 

 scribes as having " an inner radiating cylinder composed of 

 barred vessels, a space occupied by lax cellular tissue, and 

 an outer radiating cylinder composed of tubes or elongated 

 utricles. The broad space intervening between the internal 

 and external cylinders was filled with a lax cellular tissue, 

 and traversed by medullary bundles communicating with 

 the leaves on the outside of the stem." This structure was 

 most beautifully shown in a small specimen of sigillaria 

 which I presented to him, and which he has figured and 

 described in the Transactions of the Manchester Philo- 

 sophical Society, to which I must refer you for a more de- 

 tailed account. 



Some of you will remember that the No. 2 specimen, 

 which lay some little distance from the erect one, had a 

 stem or cylinder of a few inches in diameter passing 

 down the centre of the tree. I broke away a portion of 

 this cylinder. Not feeling satisfied as to its true character, 

 I sent it to Mr. Binney, who at once recognised it as the 

 central axis or inner radiating cylinder of a sigillaria, such 

 as he describes this plant as possessing. On examining 

 the erect specimen I found that on the north side a por- 

 tion of the outer cylinder had fallen away, and a stem or 

 cylinder exactly agreeing with that in No. 2 was clearly 

 visible. 



Here, then, I think we have ample evidence that the 

 two fossils were not calamites, as supposed, but sigillaria3. 



I think there can be no doubt that these trees grew 



