218 MR. E. W. BINNEY ON ORGANS OF FRUCTIFICATION 



XVI. Note on the Organs of Fructification and Foliage of 

 Calamodendron commune (^?). By E.W. Binney, F.R.S., 

 F.G.S., &c. 



Read December 29th, 1868. 



In my paper on Calamodendron, published in vol. xxi. of 

 the ' Transactions of the Palseontographical Society/ p. 27, 

 is figured and described a plants with organs of fructifica- 

 tion attached to it^, from the lower Brooksbottom seam of 

 coal, near Ewood Bridge, in the county of Lancaster. 

 The fossil consists of a stout stem, having traces of longi- 

 tudinal ribs and furrows, and seven joints at which knots 

 appear. From these last-named parts, on each side of the 

 stem, are seen to proceed seven cones or spikes, all about 

 half an inch in length, springing outwards in a nearly 

 horizontal direction in the specimen. These cones do not 

 show externally any trace of a central axis, but are com- 

 posed of crown-shaped masses of sporangia contained in 

 receptacles arranged around an axis. Eight or nine of 

 these receptacles can be seen in one cone. Unfortunately, 

 the specimen being in soft shale, no evidence can be 

 obtained of its internal structure, so as to ascertain if the 

 sporangia contained any spores. If this is not the same 

 plant as Professor Goeppert^s Aphyllostachys jugleriana^ it 

 is closely allied to it. The fruit-stalk, nodes, and knots, 

 as well as the form and dimension of the cones of the two 

 specimens, are so much alike that is hard to distinguish one 

 from the other. The learned professor was not certain as 

 to what formation the fossil came from ; but, from its simi- 

 larity to the Ewood -Bridge specimen, there can scarcely 

 be any doubt as to its being of Carboniferous age. 



My friend Mr. John Aitken, of Bacup, furnished me 

 with the specimen. At the time the monograph was pub- 



