LYCOPODIALES— LBPIDODENDEEiE— LEPIDOPHLOIOS. 205 



Cordaianthiis-like, racemose fructifications springing from rosettes among 

 the leaf bases of a short snbtruncate-conical stem figured by Grand 'Eury.^ 



Judging from the figure, it seems to the writer that the fossil in M. 

 Grand 'Eury's hands may rather be the trunk of some Gymnosperm related 

 to the Cycads. The irregular and sometimes intercalated areolation, which 

 seems to circumscribe by rigid, prominent walls the deeply sunken leaf 

 bases or bolsters, is quite like that about the leaf bases in the Cycadeoidece 

 group, while the racemose organs of fructification, resembling Cordaianthus, 

 will at once reinforce, this idea by the suggestion of Bennettites. The 

 presence of well-preserved Cycadaceous fronds described as belonging to 

 the Mesozoic genera Pteropliyllum and Zamites, in the Upper Coal Measures 

 in several of the European basins, seems to fully waixant an inquirj^ as to 

 whether Grand 'Eury's specimen which has so great superficial resem- 

 blance, even in the smaller areolation about the inflorescence pedicels, to 

 the Cycadeoidean group represented by Ci/cadeoidea, is not Cycadaceous in 

 its afiinities. Unfortunately the author gives no information, either b}- 

 desci'iption or enlarged detail, as to the characters of the sunken leaf bases. 



The internal str^^cture of Lepidophloios described by Williamson and 

 others as bearing the closest relation and similarity to that of Lepidodendron 

 favors a predisposition to search for the fruit of the former, manifested in 

 some form comparable if not identical with Lepidostrohtis. 



Lepidophloios Van Ingeni n. sp. 



PI. LVI, Figs. 1-8; PL LVII; PI. LVIII, Fig.l"?; PI. LXI, Fig. Ic; PI. LXII, Fig./; 



PI. LXIII, Fig. 5. 



Trunks of large size, showing, when decorticated and compressed, the 

 outhnes of the diagonal rows of bolsters marked by rather long incision- 

 like longitudinal pits, the lower ends of which corres^jond to the ventral 

 traces on the bolsters; bolsters transversely rhomboidal, nearly twice as 

 broad as long, the lateral angles well rounded, the proximal or lower sides 

 more or less concave and apparently forming a well-rounded angle at the 

 base, the lower margins being nearly straight, or slightly concave near the 

 middle, including an angle of about 135°, not carinate, protruding moder- 

 ately, imbricated so that each bolster overlaps somewhat on the one next 

 below, the leaf scar being at or close to the lower border of the exposed 



' G4ol. et pal. bassin bouill. Gard, 1890, p. 234, pi. vi, fig. 17. 



