Ch. XXIV.] 



EQUISETACEJE— CALAMITES. 



4:71 



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

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

 Lepidostrobus by M. Adolphe Brongniart are met with. (See fig. 

 521.) They often form the nucleus of concretionary balls of clay- 



Fig. 521. 



a. Lepidog&robvs ornatns, Brong. Shropshire; half natural size. 



b. Portion of a section, shovring 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.) 



ironstone, and are 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 Lepiclo- 

 strobus is the fruit of Lepldodendron ; indeed, it is not uncommon in 

 Coalbrook Dale and elsewhere to find these strobili or fruits termi- 

 nating the tip of a branch of a well-characterized Lepldoclendron, 



EquisetacecB. — To this family belong two fossil species of the Coal, 

 one called E qui set urn infundibv.Uforme by Brongniart, and found also 

 in Xova Scotia, which has sheaths, regularly toothed, ribbed, and 

 overlapping like those on the young fertile stems of Equisetum flu- 

 viatile. It was much larger than any living " Horsetail." The Equi- 

 setum giganteum, discovered by Humboldt and Bonpland in South 

 America, attained a height of about 5 feet, the stem being an inch in 

 diameter ; but more recently Gardner has met with one in Brazil 15 

 feet high, and Meyen gives the height of E. Bogotense in Chili as 15 

 to 20 feet. 



Calamiies. — The fossil plants so called were originally classed by 

 most botanists as cryptogamous, being regarded as gigantic Equiseta ; 



Fig. 522. 



Fisr. 523. 



;■ -;/; 



Fig. 524. 



'■y 



Calamites cannaforrnis, Schlot. 

 (Foss. Flo.. TO.) Common in 

 English coal. 



Calamiies Sucoirii. Brong. ; Eadical termination 

 natural size. Common in of a Calamite. 



coal throughout Europe. Xova Scotia. 



