1922] BRIEFER ARTICLES 331 
It would seem that the discovery of bodies that have all the mega- 
scopic features of sporocarps, that cannot be referred to any other known 
elements of the associated flora, in association with foliage, which in 
habit, form, and venation independently suggests comparisons with the 
genus Marsilea, at two such remote localities as Sweden and western 
Canada, is strong presumptive proof of relationship. Moreover, these 
two occurrences are very different in age, thus showing no obvious 
change in the sporocarps during the time that elapsed between the 
Rhaetic and the mid-Cretaceous, a time interval of at least several 
million years, and comparable in magnitude with the time that has 
elapsed from the mid-Cretaceous to the present. If these sporocarps 
preserve their appearance during the older interval, this conservative 
feature becomes an argument of validity in comparing their latest 
occurrence with the Marsilea sporocarps of the present. 
e evidence, then, that Sagenopteris is related to the recent Hydrop- 
teraceae is about as conclusive as we can hope to secure in the absence 
of structural material, which is present in about o.ocoz per cent of the 
cases with which the paleobotanist has to deal.—Epwarp W. Berry, 
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 
A BISPORANGIATE SPOROPHYLL OF 
LYCOPODIUM LUCIDULUM 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
The occurrence of more than a single sporangium on a sporophyll in 
Lycopodium is so unusual that it is believed the following account will 
be of interest. 
Bower? records a case in which a sporophyll of L. rigidum, from a 
specimen in the Glasgow University Herbarium, bears “two sporangia 
of slightly unequal size placed side by side. They are individually smaller 
than the average sporangia in the near neighborhood on the same axis.”’ 
Bower’s statement would hold equally true for a similar case in L. 
lucidulum recently found in the writer’s laboratory. As will be noted 
from fig. 1, the larger of the sporangia shows the normal kidney shape 
typical of the sporangium of Lycopodium, while the smaller has more the 
form of a football. The relative thicknesses of the two stalks correspond 
closely to the size of the sporangia. Both stalks are slightly lateral to the 
* Bower, F. O., Note on abnormal plurality of sporangia in Lycopodium rigidum 
.Gmel. Ann. Botany 17:278-280. figs. 18. 1903. 
