146 W. Carndhers — Halonia and Lepidodendron. 



rightly concludes that it is not a Conifer, but a vascular Cryptogam, 

 and that its nearest affinity is with Lepidodendron (Quart. Journ. 

 Geol. Soc, vol. iv. p. 289). He further suggests that its tortuous 

 root-like appearance may indicate a relationship to Lepidodendron. 

 This opinion he communicated to Dr. Hooker apparently in more 

 decided terms than he employs in his published paper; and Dr. 

 Hooker, in his memoir on the "Vegetation of the Carboniferous 

 Period," adopts, but with great caution, this view of the nature of 

 these fossils (p. 423). I cannot here refrain from expressing my 

 regret that Fossil Botany owes so small a debt to Mr. Dawes. The 

 few short papers which he has published exhibit a fidelity of obser- 

 vation and description, and a just appreciation and interpretation of 

 the structures observed, which are too rare in many papers on this 

 subject. Besides the paper which I have quoted, I would further 

 refer to his valuable memoir on Calamites, which it is to be re- 

 gretted has never been printed except in abstract. 



Geinitz, in his " Steinkohlenformation in Sachsen," (1855), re- 

 ferred Lindley and Hutton's Bothrodendron punctatum (Fossil Flora, 

 plates 80-81) to Balonia, overlooking the difference between the 

 large sunken scars in the one^ and the smaller tubercular elevations 

 in the other. One of his figures is of great importance, but to this 

 I shall again return. He proposed a second species, H. irregularis, 

 (tab. iv. fig. 5) ; but the fragment on which it is based appears to me 

 to be a piece of one of the segments of the large Coal-measure 

 Crustacean to which Jordan gave the name of ArthropUura armata.^ 

 I have the authority of my colleague, Mr. H. Woodward, whose 

 labours are well known in this division of the Animal Kingdom, for 

 saying that he agrees with me in this opinion. 



Goldenberg, in the same year, published the first part of his 

 " Flora Sarsepontana Fossilis," which contained a rude yet instructive 

 drawing of Halonia (pi. iii. fig. 12). In his description he refers to 

 the small, scars as produced by the leaves, and the larger scars as 

 belonging to other organs, the nature of which he does not specify. 

 The leaf scars were rhomboidal, and in all points agreed with those 

 of Lepidodendron, so that he thought it probable that the specimens of 

 Halonia were no more than branches of known species of Lepido- 

 dendron. His figure shows a bifurcating specimen, with the portion 

 of the stem below the branch exhibiting only leaf scars, and the 

 tubercles occurring irregularly on the branches. These tubercles he 

 describes as having a continuous covering of bark, which is marked 

 with leaf scars, and he consequently thinks them due to aborted 

 branches that have not penetrated the bark. This author gives on 

 the same plate a figure of a large stem of LepidopJdoios laricinum, 

 Sternb., which I believe belongs to the same plant, as does also the 

 specimen figured under the name Ulodendron flexuosum, Goldenb. 

 (pi. ii. fig. 10), which shows the rhomboid leaf scars and a double 

 series of conical protuberances, not depressions as in Ulodendron. 

 It is further, I think, probable that the leaves (pi. iii. fig. 13), to 



1 See Memoir on Ulodendron, Monthly Microscopical Journal, March, 1870. 



2 See Geol. Mag., March, 1873, p. 107. 



