118 



THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Returning to tlic more special subject of this work, I 

 may remark that the lepidodendroid trees ana 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 l.epi iodendron, 

 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 

 attention is that 

 of the Calamites. 

 These are tall, cy- 

 lindrical, branch- 

 less stems, with 

 whorls of branch- 

 lets, bearing need le- 

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

 form dense thickets, like Southern cane-brakes (Fig. 4G). 

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



Fig. 41. — Rods associated witli the main coal 

 (S. Jogffins, Nova Scotia). 1, Shiilc and sand- 

 stone—plants with Spirorhis attached; rain- 

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

 feet — erect Calamites\ 3, Gray sandstone, 

 Beven feet ; 4, Gray shale, four teet — an erect 

 coniferous (h 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, A'aiadites^ and Spiror- 

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

 feet of coal in two scams. 8, Undorclay, with 

 rootlets. 



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



