The Fossil Plants of the Coal Measures. 55 



student will, in future, see, at a glance, where to find any 

 information he requires respecting them. In my present 

 contribution I have dealt with the large family of the 

 Calamarice, using that term in the comprehensive sense in 

 which it has been adopted by my late friend Professor 

 Weiss, of Berlin, and other recent writers on the subject. 



In 1828 Adolphe Brongniart pointed out some of the 

 affinities of the fossil Calamites with the living Equisetums. 

 In his Classic " Prodrome d'une Histoire des Vegetaux 

 Fossiles," he included such Calamites as he was then 

 acquainted with along with the true fossil Equisetums in 

 the family Equisetacece. At the same time he left a large 

 number of other plants, which we now know to be closely 

 allied to the Calamites, in a group which he entitled 

 " Vegetaux dont la classe est incertaine." In his " Tableau 

 des genres des Vegetaux fossiles," published in 1849, he still 

 placed some of the Calamites in his family of " Equisetacees," 

 but he transferred others to his " Troisieme Embranchement 

 Phanerogames Dicotyledones," grouping them along with 

 some of his previous uncertain plants, such as Sphenophyllum, 

 Annularia, Hippurites, Asterophyllites, and Calamodendroriy 

 in his " Sous-embranchement, Dicotyledones Gymnos- 

 permes ; Famille des Asterophyllitees." 



At an early period of my researches it became evident 

 to me that these arrangements could not be accepted. I 

 soon arrived at the conclusion that some, at least, of the 

 above genera, along with others more recently established, 

 must all be placed along with the Calamites in the Crypto- 

 gamic division of the vegetable kingdom, and that the 

 recent Equisetums must also be included in the same 

 division. The idea that first suggested itself was to include 

 them all in the natural order Equisetacece ; — making the 

 living Equisetums the type of the order. But little reflection 

 was needed to show me that more than this was required. 

 It soon became evident that the Palaeozoic forms represented 



