FOSSIL FLORA. 35 



PLATE IX. 



Fossil Stems and Seed-vessels. 



Fig. 1. The strobilus or cone of an extinct family of plants whose remains are very abundant 

 in the coal strata, and which have largely contributed to the formation of the 

 mineral fuel now become so indispensable to the necessities and luxuries of man. 

 There are several kinds, and although there can be no doubt that they are the seed- 

 vessels of the Lepidodendra with which they are associated, yet but few species are 

 identified with their parent trees. The specimen figured is the Lepidostrobus ornatiis 

 of Lindley and Hutton. From the coal measures of Coalbrook Dale. 



Fig. 2. One of the so-called " Petrified Melons" of Mount Carmel. 



Figs. 3 & 4. An unknown fossil body ; possibly a coral. 



Fig. 5. A vertical section of one of the " Petrified^ Melons " from Mount Carmel. The fossil 

 thus named by Mr. Parkinson appears to be merely a siliceous nodule, having 

 a cavity lined with quartz crystals. There is, however, a legend rife among the 

 barefooted friars of Mount Carmel, that has conferred a celebrity on these stones ; 

 it runs, that " on this spot was a garden well stocked with melons, and that the 

 prophet Elias, who ibunded the monastery, once asking the gardener for one of 

 his melons, he with churlish humour answered, they were not melons but stones : on 

 which they were immediately changed into stones, and so remain to this day." 



Figs. 6 & 7. Unknown vegetable fossils, highly metaUic; fig. 6 appears to be a fragment of 

 a cone. 



Figs. 8 & 9, are nodules of pyrites, accidentally assuming the form of fungi; they are not 

 fossils, but simply masses of inorganic mineral matter. 



Fig. 10. Portion of the flattened stem of an extinct plant, from the coal measures of Yorkshire, 

 whose affinities are uncertain ; supposed to resemble the Yew-tree. It appears to be 

 similar to the fossil named Knorria taxina by Messrs. Lindley and Hutton in the 

 British Fossil Flora. In that beautiful work, — the continuation of which is much 

 to be desired,— the germB Knorria comprises those fossil stems in which the projecting 

 scars of the petioles are densely arranged in a spiral manner.^ 



' Medals of Creation, vol. i. p. 161. 



