Carruthers— On a Fossil Cone from the Coal-measures. 437 
his paper published in the Linnean Society’s Transactions, after the 
publication of Dr. Hooker’s Memoir, he withdrew his name Triplo- 
sporite (which, however, had already been taken up by Unger in 
his ‘Genera et Species Plantarum Fossilium’ from the published 
abstract of the paper), and reduced his genus to Lepidostrobus. 
That Zepidostrobus is the fruit of some species of Lepidodendron 
there can be no longer any doubt, and it would seem better to re- 
duce the first genus, which is based upon only a fragment of a 
plant. But there are reasons which appear to me sufficiently im- 
portant to retain this as at least a temporary genus. The Lepido- 
dendra seem to have been very brittle plants: the stem, branches, 
and fruit were easily snapped asunder, so that they almost always 
occur in a very fragmentary condition. A cone is very rarely found 
connected with its supporting branch. The evidence, therefore, of 
the connection between a Lepidodendron and its own Lepidostrobus 
is consequently of a very unsatisfactory nature. The two kinds of 
cones described by Dr. Hooker were found enclosed in hollow 
trunks, the one of Lepidodendron elegans, and the other of L. Har- 
court ; and on this ground he refers them to these two species. 
Until materials turn up to satisfactorily determine the relation of 
fruits to their own species, it will create less confusion, and supply 
more definite data, if we consider Lepidostrobus in the meantime 
as a genus. We may hope, in course of time, to be supplied with 
such specimens: a few have been already published by Lindley, 
Patterson and Prestwich. 
Lepidostrobus is a cylindrical, obtuse cone, somewhat tapering at 
both ends, and variable in length. It consists of a solid central axis, 
supporting numerous scales, each bearing a single oblong sporan- 
gium. The axis is cylindrical, and is composed of a small core of 
cellular tissue, surrounded by a sheath made up of numerous bundles 
of scalariform vessels, scattered at regular distances through a 
tissue of elongated cells. ‘These gradually leave the axis, and each 
forms the vascular bundle of a scale passing along its centre to its 
apex. The lower half or pedicel of the scale is at right angles to 
the axis, and the imbricated apex has a direction more or less parallel 
to the axis. A single sporangium is supported on the upper surface 
of the pedicel, and is either adnate, or attached by a small surface 
towards the apex. The sporangium is an oblong tapering body, 
largest at the outer extremity. ‘The spores are composed of three, 
rarely of four sporules, which at last separate from each other. 
This description is illustrated by figures B and c, Plate XII. 
Fig. B shows transverse and longitudinal sections of part of a cone, 
and the spores of Lepidostrobus Brownit, drawn from Mr. Brown’s 
specimens in the collections of the Botanical Department of the 
British Museum. Fig.c is a restored section of two scales, and 
the spores of L. ornatus from Dr. Hooker’s plate in the Geological 
Memoirs (loc. cit., pl. v. and viii.). 
The cone I have described differs remarkably from Lepidostrobus 
in the large number of small sporangia borne on each scale. At 
first I was inclined to consider this as only of specific value, but it 
