On Carloniferous Coal Seams. By Edward Wttliered. 417 



re-description, if only as a temporary genus, would have prevented 

 the confusion caused by the withdrawal. 



It then becomes a question as to whether the coal spores are 

 still to be allied with the Lyco'podiex, and if not, with what. In 

 solving this problem we, unfortunately, have to deal with imperfect 

 and unsatisfactory information. Several Lepidostrobi have been 

 figured and described, some of them containing both kinds of spores. 

 There can be but little doubt that the Lepidostrobi are the fruit of 

 the Lepidodendroid plants, but there is such a variety of forms 

 included under that head, that it is not likely the known Lepidostruhi 

 are the only ones which existed, or that they are even typical of 

 the whole group. There is also uncertainty as to which of tha 

 individual Lepidodendra they belonged, and in support of this asser- 

 tion I will quote two authorities. Mr. Carruthers * says a cone is 

 very rarely found connected with its supporting branches, the evi- 

 dence, therefore, of the connection between a Lepidodendron and its 

 Lepidostrobi is consequently of a very unsatisfactory nature." Sir 

 William Dawson says, " I cannot pretend that I have found the 

 fruit oiSigillaria attached to the parent stem." f Among the cones 

 which have been figured I may mention Triplosporites, which was 

 described by Mr. Eobert Brown X and which Mr. Carruthers looks 

 upon as the Carboniferous representative of Selaginella.^ The 

 history of this fruit is, however, very vague. It was brought to 

 this country by a dealer who had obtained it from the collection of 

 a Baron Eoget, where it had been for about thirty years. Nothing 

 more ser-ms to be known about the history of the fossU, and it is not 

 mentioned by Sir Joseph Hooker in his " Kemarks on the Structu;e 

 and Affinities of some Lepidostrobi " in the second volume of the 

 ' Memoirs of the Geological Survey.' Other fruits have been figured 

 by Brongniart, Lindley and Hutton, Binney, Professor Williamson, 

 of Manchester, and others. The latter pointed out the occurrence 

 of both macrospores and microspores in coal, in a paper read before 

 the Geological Section of the British Association at York, but I am 

 not aware that the paper has been printed except in abstract. In 

 the ' Philosophical Transactions,' Professor Williamson figures a 

 Calamostachys Binneyana, which shows two kinds of spores. The 

 microspores measure about • 0031 and the macrospores occur as 

 large as 0-01. However, the imperfect specimens figured by him 

 in plate 54, figs. 25 and 26 of his Monograph, prevent any reliable 

 comparison, and those figured in the strobilus are not sufficiently 

 magnified to render comparison possible. Professor Williamson has 

 also found some Lepidostrobi together with ferns and an articulate 



* Geol. Mag., ii. (1865) p. 437. 

 t 'Acadian Geology,' 3rd edition, 1878, p. 437. 

 % Trans. Liim. See, vi. p. 298. 

 § Geol. Mag., vi. p. 298. 

 Ser. 2.— Vol. V. 2 E 



