54 W. Carruthers — Notes on Fossil Plants, 



referred, and which, are distinguished by possessing the long linear 

 processes proceeding from the bud, that were supposed by Lindlej^ to 

 be petals, and by Morris as either a style or carpellary pedicel. After 

 examining a large series of Antholites in different museums, and ob- 

 serving the sessile-fruited specimens in the Manchester Museum, I 

 had come to the same conclusion with Prof. Morris, that they were 

 styles with somewhat dilated stigmas, and I saw reasons for co- 

 relating them with the Orohanchece. This opinion I communicated 

 to Sir Charles Lyell, and it was introduced by him, on my authority, 

 into his Students' Manual (p. 412). But this work had scarcely 

 issued from the press when Mr. Peach submitted to me some import- 

 ant specimens which he had discovered in the Carboniferous shales 

 near Falkirk. These threw a new light on the nature of the processes 

 exserted from the axillary bud, and showed that they were, as Morris 

 had suggested, pedicels of fruits. The specimens described by Morris 

 were somewhat obscure ; but there can be no doubt about those belong- 

 ing to Mr. Peach,^ and the information they give clears up the obscu- 

 rities of the earlier specimens. I have been still further aided by a speci- 

 men of A. anomaliis, Morris, in the British Museum, preserved in an 

 ironstone nodule like those from Colebrook Dale, but said to be from 

 Derbyshire. This specimen still retains somewhat of its original bulk, 

 but the tissues have disappeared, and the space occupied by them is 

 filled with a little carbonaceous matter, but chiefly with crystals of 

 calcite or with allophane. 



When Brongniart, in the infancy of Palseontological Botany, 

 proposed the name Ardholithes, he included in the group to which he 

 applied it two fossils that belonged, as he believed, not only to two 

 different orders, but to orders so widely removed from each other 

 that the one ie monocotyledonous and the other dicotyledonous. This 

 cannot of course be accepted as a generic group. Such vague terms 

 as this and Fkyllites, CarpolitJies, etc., were at the time necessary ; but 

 it is obvious that they must be set aside, in regard to one or more of 

 the objects included under them, as soon as, in the progress of inves- 

 tigation, the true nature of these objects is ascertained. There is the 

 less reason for hesitating to set aside the familiar name Antholiihes, 

 in the case before us, inasmuch as the fruits which Prof. Morris and 

 Mr. Peach have found associated with these fossils have received the 

 characteristic generic name of Cardiocarpon. As one of the names 

 must be suppressed, it is obviously desirable to place that one among 

 the synonyms which is in its very nature temporary, and not truly 

 generic. Besides, the Carboniferous species could not now be in- 

 cluded under the same generic designation with the Eocene flowers. 



The genus Cardiocarpon was established by Brongniart (Prod. p. 87) 

 for several lenticular, compressed, obcordate or reniform, and acuminate 

 fruits, which occur in the Coal-measures. He considered them to be 

 the fruits of Lepidodendroid plants, and in this opinion he was followed 

 by Unger and Endlicher. He enumerates five species, but gives no 

 descriptions whereby they can be identified. Lindley and Hutton 



1 These specimens are now in the collections of the Geological Department of the 

 British Museum. 



