482 REPORT—1883. 
the axial structures of which were trimerous! (rarely tetramerous), having a cellular 
medulla in its centre. Its appendages were exact multiples of those numbers. 
Of the plant to which it belonged, we know nothing. On the other hand, we have 
examples, supposed to be of the same genus, as C. paniculata,” and C. polystachya,* 
united to stems with Asterophyllitean leaves, but whether or not these fruits had 
the organisation of C. Binneana, we are unable to say. 
We are also acquainted with the structure of the two fruits belonging to the 
genera Bruckmanna* and Volkmannia.’ This latter term has long been very 
vaguely applied. 
There still remain the genera Stachannularia, Paleostachya, Macrostachya, 
Cingularia, Huttonia, and Calamitina, all of which have the phyllomes of their 
strobili, fertile and sterile, arranged in verticils, and some of them display Astero- 
phyllitean foliage. But these plants are only known from structureless impressions. 
That all these curious spore-bearing organisms have close affinities with the large 
group of the Equisetums, cannot be regarded as certain, but several of them un- 
doubtedly have peculiarities of structure suggestive of relations with the Calamites. 
This is especially observable in the longitudinal canals found in the central axis of 
some types, apparently identical with what I have designated the internodal canals 
of the Calamites.° The position and structure of their vascular bundles suggest the 
same relationship, whilst in many the positions of the sporangia and sporangio- 
phores are eminently Equisetiform. Renault's Bruckmannia Grand-Euryi and 
B. Decaisnet, as well as a strobilus which I described in 1870,’ exhibit these Cala- 
mitean affinities very distinctly. 
One strobilus which I described in 1880 * must not be overlooked. As is well 
known, all the living forms of Equisetaceous plants are isosporous. We only 
discover heterosporous vascular Cryptogams amongst the Lycopodiacee and the 
Rhizocarpe. My strobilus is identical in every detailed feature of its organisation 
with the common Calamostachys Binneana, excepting that it is heterosporous, 
having microspores in its upper and macrospores in its lower part; a state of 
things suggestive of some link between the Eguisetine and the heterosporous 
Lycopodiacee. 
Lycopodiacee.—This branch of my subject suggests memories of a long conflict 
which, though virtually over, still leaves, here and there, the ground-swell of a 
stormy past. At the meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, in 1870, 
I first announced that a thick, secondary, exogenous growth of vascular tissue 
existed in the stems of many Carboniferous Cryptogamic plants, especially in the 
Calamitean and Lepidodendroid forms. But, at that time, the ideas of M. Brongniart 
were so entirely in the ascendant, that my notions were rejected by every botanist 
present. Though the illustrious French paleontologist knew that such growths 
existed in Stgel/arié and in what he designated Calamodendra, he concluded that, 
de facto, such plants could not be Cryptogams. Time, however, works wonders. 
Evidence has gradually accumulated proving that—with the conspicuous exception 
of the ferns—nearly every Carboniferous Cryptogam was capable of developing such 
zones of secondary growth. The exceptional position of the ferns still appears to 
be as true as it was when I first proclaimed their exceptional character at Liverpool. 
At that time I was under the impression that the secondary wood was only de- 
veloped in such plants as attained to arboreal dimensions, hut I soon afterwards 
1 It is an interesting fact that transverse sections of the strobili of Lycopodium 
Alpinum exhibit a somewhat similar trimerous arrangement, though differing widely 
in the positions of its sporangia. 
* Weiss, Abhandlungen zur Gieologischen Specialkarte von Preuszen und Thiiring- 
ischen Staaten, Taf. xiii. Fig. 1. 
3 Idem. Taf. xvi. Fig. 1, 2. 
4+ Renault. Annales de Sciences naturelles, Bot. Tome iii. PI. iii. 
5 Idem. Pl. ii. 
° Memoir i. Pl..xxiii. Fig. 1 e, and Pl. xxv. Fig. 20 e. 
* Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 5rd series, 
vol. iv. p. 248. 
8 Memoir xi. Pl. liv. figs. 23, 24, 
