W. Carruthers — Wotes on Fossil Platits. 53 



opposed to the notion that the fossils were related to Bromeliacece, 

 and he suggested comparisons with Orohanche, Hedychium, and 

 Lacis.^ 



Goppert, in his Permian Flora, figures an Antholite (pi. xxi., 

 fig. 1-3), which he considers to be the inflorescence of Noggerathia, 

 a genus placed by him among the monocotyledons ; while Ettings- 

 hausen, on the other hand, believes the forms he found in the Coal- 

 Measures at Stradonitz to be the fruits of Calamites (" Steinkohlen- 

 flora Stradonitz," pi. v., fig. 1-3). He describes the bracts and 

 fruits as borne in an opposite and alternate manner on the common 

 peduncle, overlooking the structural consideration that the phyllo- 

 taxy of Galamiies demands a verticillate arrangement in the floral 

 spike. Principal Dawson figures several forms in his " Memoir on 

 the Conditions of the Deposition of Coal " (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 

 1866, pi. vii., fig. 29 and 30), and two additional forms from De- 

 vonian strata in his Acadian Geology (p. 555, fig. 194 e and /). 

 One of the latter, Trigonocarpcm racemosum, Daws., is figured with 

 sessile (Acad. Geol. I.e.) or with shortly pedicellate fruits (Foss. PL 

 of Devon, and Sil. Form., 1871, pi. xix., fig. 227a). A fragment of 

 a fossil with sessile fruits is figured in Prestwich's Memoir, to which 

 I before alluded (Geol. Trans., ser. 2, vol. v., pi. 38, fig. 5, specimen 

 furthest to the right). I have made a drawing of a similar sessile- 

 fruited Antholite in the Museum at Manchester, but I have not been 

 able to re-examine the fine series of Antholites in that Museum in 

 connexion with my present inquiry. It appears, therefore, that 

 some Antholites had sessile fruits, and it is very probable, as Dr. 

 Dawson believes, that these may be the pedimcles of different species 

 of Bhabdocarpos and Trigonocarpon. But that these spicate in- 

 florescences and their fruits belong to Sigillaria, is opposed to the 

 observations of Goldenberg, which have been confirmed by subse- 

 quent observers, as well as to the analogy of the fructification of the 

 other closely related Carboniferous Lycopodiaeece.^ 



Besides these sessile-fruited Antholites there is another group, in- 

 cluding in it the two British Carboniferous forms to which I have 



1 There is a group of Carboniferous fossils having remarkable amorphous out- 

 lines which so resemble the vegetative portions of the Fodostemmacece (to which Lacis 

 belongs) that I have for some time been looking out for evidence to confirm or set 

 aside my suspicion that they belong to this order. The plants to which I refer are 

 mostly included in Schimper's genus Racophyllum (Traite Pal., vol. i., p. 68-i), and 

 supposed by him to be the primary fronds of ferns. The physical conditions 

 existing at the time when the shales of the Coal-measures were being deposited 

 would specially suit the habits of this curious order of plants, the foliage of which 

 has the aspect of thallogenous cryptogams, while the reproductive organs are those of 

 dicotyledons. 



2 The phrase " corresponding to " is somewhat vagUe, but I canliot understand in 

 what sense it is used by Br. Dawson in the following statement made regarding the 

 Antholite spike in his Memoir already quoted (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxii., 

 p. 133), and repeated in the second edition of his Acadian Geology (p. 438). "Such 

 spikes may be regarded as corresponding to a leaf with fruits borne on the edges, in 

 the manner of the female flower of Cycas.'" I fail to see that any correspondence 

 can exist between so complex a structure as a primary axis bearing not only its own 

 foliar appendages, but in their axils secondary leaf-bearing and fruit-bearing axes, 

 and the simple open carpellary leaf of Cycas. 



