454 STRUCTURE AND AFFINITIES OF LEPIDOSTROBI. 



their general similarity to some really coniferous and totally different 

 plants of Tasmania. 



Cones, again, instead of being fruit-bearing organs, are frequently 

 mere aggregations of male flowers. This is the case especially with 

 the Cycadece, the cones of one species of which {Dion edule of Mexico) 

 entirely resemble those of the truly coniferous genus Araucaria. 



Proteacece are an order whose species abound in, and are almost con- 

 fined to, Australia and South Africa, and whose (hermaphrodite) flowers 

 are very frequently arranged in cones. Such cones would, if fossilized, 



and in the absence of any other evi- 

 Fi S- 3 - dence, be considered to have belonged 



to a coniferous plant. An illustration 

 is added of such a Proteaceous cone, 

 which, without examination, is calcu- 

 lated to deceive, even when recent, and 

 if petrified, would assuredly be con- 

 sidered as belonging to a pine. 



Lycopodiacece are the last (though not 

 the only other) cone-bearing genera I 

 shall mention ; but as Lepidostrobi are 

 to be directly compared with these, I omit any further mention of them 

 here. 



The size, form, and arrangement of their parts, together with the 

 general disposition of previous observers to class the Lepidostrobi among 

 Coniferce, did not deceive M. Brongniart, who rightly conjectured them 

 to belong to Lycopodiacece, and that too without any of that direct 

 evidence, afforded by the specimen in the museum of the Geological 

 Survey. Dr. Lindley, with his usual sagacity, had previously referred 

 the cones to Lepidodendron, though ignorant of the nature of those 

 tissues which also it has been our good fortune to obtain. In this 

 opinion M. Brongniart concurs, and proceeds, in a review of the cha- 

 racters afforded by both Lepidodendron and Lepidostrobus, to cite his 

 reasons for allying them to Lycopodiacece, rather than to Conifers, 

 under which the authors of the Fossil Flora of Great Britain had 

 arranged Lepidodendron.* 



From the curious dichotomous ramification of the stem, M. Brong- 



* The extreme perplexity of this subject may be gathered from the hesitation 'with 

 which so excellent a botanist as Dr. Lindley always speaks of the affinities of Lepido- 

 dendron. In the introduction to the Fossil Flora, he regards it as Lycopodiaceous ; under 

 Halonia gracilis (Tab. 86), as probably coniferous ; Lepid. Harcourtii (Tab. 89, 90) is 

 pronounced intermediate between Lycopod. and Conifera ; Lep. selaginoides (Tub. 113) 

 is, he continues, rather Coniferous than Lycopodiaceous ; and finally, under Lep. elegans 

 (Tab. 118) and Megaphyton approximatum (Tab. 116), the Lepidodendreee are definitively 

 referred to Coniferce. 



