46 Mr A. G. Seward, On Lomatophloios macrolepidotus. [Feb. 10, 



they approach the periphery D they become somewhat oblique 

 and gradually get more and more compressed. From E to F we 

 have similar tissues belonging to another leaf-base. 



Williamson 1 gives a figure of Favularia shewing the " tubular 

 part of the bark 2 " passing through prosenchymatous cells into 

 the outer parenchymatous tissue of the epidermal layer. In my 

 fig. 2, in passing from A to B, almost identically the same tissues 

 are seen. From C to D and E to F we have parts of the paren- 

 chymatous epidermal layer which has passed off to form the leaf- 

 bases. The cells in this tissue become smaller and denser towards 

 the periphery, as noticed in similar sections by Williamson 3 . 



At a in fig. 1 are some opaque bodies, round and elliptical 

 in shape (too small to be shewn in the figure). These I took to 

 be coprolites of some wood-boring Annelid ; such bodies are by 

 no means uncommon in sections of fossil wood; in one of William- 

 son's figures of a Calamite 4 some of these coprolites are seen in 

 its medullary cavity, in another place 5 a piece of wood is shewn 

 perforated by some xylophagous animal whose coprolites occur 

 scattered about the tissues. These coprolites and the vascular 

 bundles of the Stigmarian rootlets seen in transverse section 

 seemed to me the only things that Weiss could have taken for 

 spores. 



The conclusion to which an examination of the above sections 

 led me was that this so-called cone of fructification is simply 

 a flattened portion of a Lepidodendroid plant which has lost 

 its woody axis, also the innermost and middle cortical tissues. 

 In fig. 2, Plate xxiv. of the second of Williamson's coal plant 

 memoirs we have a longitudinal section of Lepidode?idron selagi- 

 noides : if we imagine all the tissues of this to be destroyed except 

 those marked I and k, that is the epidermal or leaf-base tissues, 

 and the tubular part of the outer bark, we have left exactly the 

 same as those preserved in this specimen of Lomatophloios. 



Prof. Williamson 6 , in speaking of the bark tissues, remarks 

 that near the outer surface there is a layer of prosenchymatous 

 tissue where the cells are so elongated as to constitute a distinct 

 "bast layer" which has exhibited a constant tendency to separate 

 itself from the subjacent cortical tissue. 



1 On the Organisation of the Fossil Plants of the Coal Measures, Pt. n. Pl.xxvin. 

 Fig. 32 (Phil. Trans. Boyal Society, 1872, p. 197). 



2 Ibid. p. 211. 



3 Ibid. p. 201. 



4 On the Organisation of the Fossil Plants of the Coal Measures, Pt. i. PI. xxiv. 

 Fig. 10 (Phil. Trans. 1871, p. 477). 



5 On the Organisation of the Fossil Plants of the Coal Measures, Pt. x. PI. xx. 

 Figs. 65, 66 (Phil. Trans. 1880, p. 493). 



e hoc. cit. Pt. ii. (Phil. Trans. 1872), pp. 223, 224. 



