October 13, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



465 



In view of these special circumstances 

 under which we forgather, it may seem 

 inappropriate if I deal, as I shall be doing, 

 in my presidential address mainly with 

 fossil plants, with the study of which I 

 have been for some time occupied; but I 

 need hardly assure our visitors that, while 

 we entertain some feelings of satisfaction at 

 the contributions made during the past 

 half century towards our knowledge of ex- 

 tinct flora of Britain, yet, as the later 

 sittings of this section will show, and 

 as they have no doubt realized during 

 their peregrinations through this country, 

 our botanical sympathies and energies are 

 by no means limited to this branch of bo- 

 tanical study. Moreover, I hope during 

 the course of my address to point out the 

 ecological interest which is afforded by cer- 

 tain aspects of paleobotany. 



On the sure foundations laid by my 

 revered predecessor, the late Professor Wil- 

 liamson, so vast a superstructure has been 

 erected by the active work of numerous 

 investigators that I must limit myself in 

 this address to exploring only certain of its 

 recesses, and I shall consequently confine 

 myself to some aspects of paleobotany 

 which have either not been dealt with in 

 those able expositions of the subject given 

 to this section by previous occupants of this 

 presidential chair, or which may be said 

 to have passed since then into a period of 

 mutation. 



The great attractiveness of paleobotany, 

 and the very general interest which has 

 been evinced in botanical circles in the 

 progress of recent investigations into the 

 structure of fossil plants, are due to the 

 light they have thrown upon the relation- 

 ship and the evolution of' various groups 

 of existing plants. It was the lasting 

 achievement of Williamson to have shown, 

 with the active cooperation of many work- 

 ing-men naturalists from the Lancashire 



and Yorkshire coal-fields, that the structure 

 of the coal-measure plants from these dis- 

 tricts can be studied in microscopic prepa- 

 rations as effectively as has been the case 

 with recent plants since the days of Grew 

 and Malpighi. Indeed, had Sachs lived to 

 continue his marvelous historical account 

 of the rise of botanical knowledge up to 

 the years 1880 or 1890, he would undoubt- 

 edlj^ have drawn attention to the remark- 

 able growth of our knowledge of extinct 

 plants gained by Binney and Williamson 

 from the plant remains in the calcareous 

 nodules of English coal-seams, and by 

 Renault from the siliceous pebbles of 

 Autun. We are not likely to forget the 

 pioneer work of these veterans, though 

 since then investigations of similar con- 

 cretions from the coal deposits of this and 

 other countries have been undertaken by 

 numerous workers and have revealed 

 further secrets from that vast store of in- 

 formation which lies buried at our feet. 



The possibilities of impression material 

 had indeed been practically exhausted in 

 1870, and further advance could only come 

 from new methods of attacking the prob- 

 lems that still remained to be solved. The 

 most striking recent instance of the insuffi- 

 ciency of the evidence of external features 

 alone was Professor Oliver's demonstra- 

 tion of the seed-bearing nature of certain 

 fern-like plants, based on microscopical 

 comparison of the structure of the cupule 

 of Lagenostoma, with the fronds of Lygin- 

 odendron, after which discovery confirma- 

 tory evidence speedily came to hand from 

 numerous plant impressions examined by 

 Kidston, Zeiller, and other observers. 



Undoubtedly in the hands of a less com- 

 petent and far-sighted observer than Will- 

 iamson, the new means of investigation 

 might have proved as misleading as the 

 old method had been in many instances. 

 Indeed, as is well known, the recognition 



