LEPIDODENDEON". 

 Fig. 471. 



363 



Lepidodendron Sternbergii. Coal-measures, near Newcastle. 

 Fig. 470. Branching trunk, 49 feet long, supposed to have belonged to L. Stern- 

 bergii. (Foss. Flo. 203.) 

 Fig. 471. Branching stem with bark and leaves of L. Sternbergii. (Foss. Flo. 4.) 

 Fig. 472. Portion of same nearer the root ; natural size. (Ibid.) 



Fig. 473 



a. Zycopodium denmm; banks of R. Thames, New Zealand. 



b. Branch, natural size. c. Part of same magnified. 



In the carboniferous strata of Coalbrook Dale, and in many other coal 

 fields, elongated cylindrical bodies, called fossil cones, named Lepidostro- 

 bus by M. Adolphe Brongniart, are met with. (See fig. 474.) They 

 often form the nucleus of concretionary balls of clay-ironstone, and are 



Fig. 474, 



a. Lepidoatrobw ornatus, Brong. Shropshire; half natural size. 



5. Portion of a section showing the large sporangia in their natural position, and each 



supported by its bract or scale. 

 c. Spores in these sporangia, highly magnified. (Hooker, Mem. Geol. Survey, vol. ii. part 



2, p. 440.) 



well preserved, exhibiting a conical axis, around which a great quantity 

 of scales were compactly imbricated. The opinion of M. Brongniart is 

 now generally adopted, that the Lepidostrobus is the fruit of Lepidoden- 



