W. Carruthers — Notes on Fossil Plants, 



55 



(Foss. Flora, pi. 76) maintained that they were true fruits, but they 

 were not able to indicate their affinities. Goppert and Berger (De 

 Fruct. et Sem. Form. Lith. p. 15) make them dicotyledonous fruits 

 of doubtful affinity ; and Dawson, in his recently -published Memoir 

 on Pre-Carboniferous Plants (p. 61), advocates their being gymno- 

 spermous seeds. 



The materials to which I have referred enable me to give the 

 following description of the genus: — Cardiocarpon, Brongn., Prod. 

 (1828) p. 87. AnthoUthes, Lindl. and Hutt., Fossil Flora, pi. 82 

 (non Brongn.). 



Fig. 1. Cardiocarpon Lindleyi, Carr. Coal-measures, Falkirk. 



Main axis of the inflorescence simple, stout, and marked exter- 

 nally with interrupted ridges. The base is always broken off 

 with an irregular margin, and without any indications of an 

 articulating surface. The axis bears in a distichous manner sub- 

 opposite or alternate bracts of a linear or linear-lanceolate form and 

 with decurrent base. In the axils of the bracts are developed flower- 

 like leaf -bearing buds, and from them proceed three or four linear 

 pedicels which terminate upwards in a somewhat enlarged trumpet- 

 shaped apex. To this enlarged articulating surface was attached the 

 fruit to which has been given the generic name 

 Cardiocarpon. The place of attachment is in- 

 dicated by the short straight line which separates 

 the cordate lobes at the base of the fruit. The 

 fruit is flattish, broadly ovate, with a cordate base 

 and subacute apex. It consists of an outer peri- 

 carp, inclosing an ovate-acute seed. That the peri- 

 carp was of some thickness, and formed probably 

 a subindurated rind, is shown by a specimen 

 preserved in the round in the collections of 

 the British Museum. A specimen somewhat similar to this is 

 that to which Goppert and Berger have given the name C. oper- 

 culatum (1.0., p. 23, pi. ii., fig. 21) ; it has lost from the figured 

 side the perisperm, and has the seed exposed. In the figures and 

 descriptions of this and other species of Cardiocarpon by these 

 authors the fruits are turned upside down. The pericarp is dilated 

 around the margin of the seed, and gives to the compressed fruit the 



Fig. 2. Cardiocarpon 

 Lindleyi, Carr. Twice 

 the natural size. 



