80 STUDIES IN FOSSIL BOTANY 



this may account in certain cases for the apparently 

 distinct leaves. 



So far, I have treated the Calamarieae generally as 

 being Cryptogamic plants with manifest Equisetaceous 

 affinities, and I do not think, so far as that goes, that 

 much difference of opinion now remains, though for 

 many years their position was warmly disputed. I 

 mentioned in the last chapter the views of Brongniart. 

 His distinguished disciple, the late M. Renault, took 

 the same side in the controversy, but, as time went on, 

 considerably modified the original Brongniartian view. 

 Brongniart would not have allowed that all the plants 

 now grouped as Calamarieae were nearly allied to one 

 another. He separated them sharply, at least in his 

 later works, into two wholly different families, the one 

 Cryptogamic, the other Phanerogamic. 1 M. Renault, 

 on the other hand, recognised the family of Calamarieae, 

 as including all fossil plants, whether Cryptogamic or 

 Phanerogamic, which possess a " Calamitoid " stem. 2 

 Within this main group, however, he separated the 

 Equisetineae (with Cryptogamic, homosporous or hetero- 

 sporous cones) from the Calamodendreae ; the latter 

 he still inclined to regard as Gymnospermous Seed- 

 plants. In his latest works he gave up the distinction 

 based on the presence or absence of secondary 

 wood, and recognised the existence of Cryptogamic 

 Calamarieae with cambium, as in the case of the 

 Catamites which bore Macrostachya as its fructifica- 

 tion. Thus, in the end, there came to be substantial 

 agreement between the great French palaeobotanist 



1 Tableau des genres de vigitaux fossiles, p. 49, 1849. 



2 Flore fossile d'Atitim et d Epinac, Part ii. 1896, p. 60. 



