﻿STIGMARIA FICOIDES. 139 



found to be finely ribbed and furrowed longitudinally ; but no trace of openings, either 

 large or small, similar to those seen on the inner walls of the open-wedged Stigmaria, was 

 met with. In my Memoir in the 'Philosophical Transactions/ figures of three piths, taken 

 out of three specimens of Sigillaria vascularis, are given. They consist of barred tubes, 

 and are all alike in their outward appearance, being slightly ribbed and furrowed ; but 

 they present no casts of oval openings, such as are seen on the inner sides of the 

 wedge-shaped bundles of the inner radiating cylinder of Stigmaria of the open-wedged 

 character. 



This specimen in all respects resembles the large specimens of S. vascularis described 

 by me in the ' Phil. Transactions,' but the outer radiating cylinder is not shown so well 

 in tangential section as No. 2 therein mentioned. Still sufficient evidence is afforded of 

 the wedge-shaped masses of large and lax parenchymatous tissue, enveloping a kidney- 

 shaped bundle of barred tubes, which traverse and divide the wedge-shaped masses of 

 prosenchymatous tubes or utricles in their way to the leaves. They are not seen in the 

 transverse and longitudinal, only in the tangential, sections ; and have not been found to 

 anastomose, as described by MM. Renault and Grand' Eury in the specimen of Sigillaria 

 spinulosa described by them. 



§ 2. The Specimens Nos. 41, 42, and 43, Stigmaria ficoides. Plate XXI, 



figs. 1—7. 



Specimen No. 41, fig. 1 (magnified 6 diameters), is a transverse section of a Stigmaria 

 fcoides, found by me in the " Bullion Seam" (marked ** in the section of strata of the 

 Lancashire Coal-measures hereinbefore given at page 12 of this Monograph) at Clough 

 Head, near Burnley, in a calcareous nodule. The specimen is oval, and about an inch in 

 diameter ; but the figure only represents the inner radiating cylinder and one of the 

 vascular bundles proceeding to the rootlets, the medulla being absent. The wedge-shaped 

 masses of the wood are parted by wide spaces, and their ends are slightly convex, 

 projecting into the space formerly occupied by the medullary tissue ; in every respect 

 similar to Goeppert's specimen, and quite different from the close- wedged example from 

 North Staffordshire described by me in the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geol. Soc.,' 

 which had its woody system separated from the medulla, or central axis, by a sharp and 

 distinct line. The tubes are quadrangular, and arranged in radiating series, being smallest 

 near the axis, and gradually increasing as they approach the circumference. On the left- 

 hand side of the figure there is represented one of the bell-shaped cavities that contained 

 the vascular bundles communicating with the rootlets ; but the zone of lax parenchy- 

 matous tissue, surrounding the inner radiating cylinder, as well as the outer radiating 

 cylinder, formed of prosenchymatous tissue, first described by me in my Memoir in the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions,' are not shown. 



