A New Sporiferous Spike. 



27 



external markings can be made out on the walls, nor are 

 they grouped in tetrads. The wall appears to be thickened, 

 but this is probably due to the mode of preservation, and, 

 in most cases, the contents remain as a central black mass, 

 in which there are occasionally indications of a nucleus. 

 They were probably mature and not in process of develop- 

 ment at the time of mineralisation. 



Systematic Position. 



Imperfect as the preceding description is, it seems 

 sufficient to enable us to refer the new spike to the Calama- 

 rieae rather than to the Lycopodineae, and hence its systematic 

 position must be sought among the spikes of the former 

 group. Unfortunately, the internal structure of these spikes 

 is known in a few cases only, and the attempts to classify 

 them by external characters alone, has not been very 

 successful. Hence, any attempt to allocate the new spike 

 to one of the groups into which the Calamarian fruits are 

 divided can only be tentative and provisional, but this is 

 no reason why the task should be avoided. 



A comparison of the new spike with the well-known 

 Calamostachys Binneyana, Schr., which is now known to be 

 the fruit of some form of Catamites^ reveals the fact that 

 there is a close general agreement between the two, 

 accompanied by differences of some importance. They 

 agree in the alternation of sterile and fertile whorls of 

 appendages ; in the position of the sporangiophores, which 

 stand midway between the successive whorls of bracts ; and 

 the number of sporangia associated with each. But the new 

 fruit differs from Calamostachys Binneyana in the form, 

 length, and, perhaps, number, of sterile bracts in each whorl ; 

 in the absence or great reduction of the sheath-like disk 

 formed by the cohesion of the bracts ; and probably in the 

 absence of a peltate expansion at the distal ends of the 

 sporangiophores. In addition, the spores are apparently 



