256 FLORA OF LOWEE GOAL MEASURES OF MISSOUEL 



So far as I am able to detect from the examination of the large type 

 described by Professor Lesquereux, the only distinctions between the genera 

 Lepidoxylon and Tceniophyllum are the presence of the foliaceous scales, and the 

 more open, distant, and ramose habit of the leaves in the former. That both 

 types are extremely intimately related is evident, the question being merely as 

 to whether the differentiation is of more tlian specific importance. Both genera 

 are found as segments of robust longitudinal axes of large size, about which 

 are gathered, usually at aii acute angle and a uniform orientation, ribbonlike, 

 delicate, collapsed leaves or appendages, agreeing in texture, apparent mode 

 of origin, the loose central vascular I'ibbon or strand, the irregular branch- 

 ing, with Stigmarioid traces, etc. While entertaining little doubt as to the 

 generic identity of the type in hand with the genus TceniopliyUum, I leave 

 it under its original generic designation in deference to the judgment of 

 its author. It is not improbable that the other fragment, 'figured by Pro- 

 fessor Lesquereux as fig. 5, on pi. Ixxxiii, is generically distinct from TcBuio- 

 liliyllwn. 



As to the systematic position of the type in hand, there is little to add 

 to what has been said of Tmniopliyllum. That both types belong to a form 

 of vegetation as far advanced as the higher Crj^ptogams there is little doubt. 

 It seems, however, that whether we assume that they be Stigmarioid or 

 filicoid in nature, they should perhaps better be oriented so as to permit 

 the leaves, which, altliough the form of their distal extremities is unknown, 

 are very strongly suggestive of Stigmaria, and the foliaceous scales, like- 

 wise suggestive of fern ramentum, to decline. It is highly probable that 

 the small area of cicatrices described from one of the trunks of Tceniopliyllmn 

 latifoli'um corresponds to the epidermal impressions in the type in hand, since 

 they are similar in size, form, and distance, and it is not difiicult to discover 

 here and there, in small areas, a spiral arrangement in the accidental local 

 grouping of the cicatrices in the specimen in hand. The features of the 

 impression of the stem showing only the small scale cicatrices are perhaps 

 indistinguishable from the tj^pe described as ? Caulopteris acantopliora Lx., 

 or the large segments occurring in the E vein at the Butler mine near 

 Pittston, Pennsylvania, which have been regarded as derived from portions 

 of the cortex of a squamose fern tfunk or from a true Stigmarioid form. 



Locality. — The type illustrated in pi. Ixxxiv of the Coal Flora is from 

 Pitcher's coal mine, U. S. Nat. Mus., 6082. 



