1877.] On the Fossil Plants of the Coal-measures. 411 



frame of Albert von Haller, by Van Stoppelaer, presented by Dr. Sharpey, 

 F.B.S., were laid before the Meeting ; and after the President had read 

 the following letter, a special vote of thanks was given to the donors of 

 the paintings : — 



Nov. 14, 1877. 



Dear Me. Peesident, — I take leave to offer for the acceptance of the 

 Boyal Society the accompanying Portrait, painted, as appears from an 

 inscription on the back, by C. van Stoppelaer in 1765, and believed to be 

 a likeness of Haller. I regret I am unable to give any history Of the 

 picture, except that M. Michel, a foreign gentleman from whom I ac- 

 quired it, informed me that it had been for many years in the possession 

 of his wife's family, and was reputed to be a portrait of Haller. The 

 date 1765 would correspond with the 57th year of Haller's life. 



I remain, 



Yours faithfully, 



Sir J. D. Hooker, P.R.S. W. Shaepet. 



The Bakerian Lecture— " On the Organization of the Fossil 

 Plants of the Coal-measures. — Part IX. On the latest Re- 

 searches into the Organization of the Fossil Plants of the 

 British Coal-measures, especially of the Catamites and Lepi- 

 dodendra" — was then delivered by W. C. Williamson, F.R.S., 

 Professor of Natural History, Owens College, Manchester. 

 The following is an abstract : — 



The first plant noticed is one of which a transverse section was 

 figured in the lecturer's Memoir, Part I., under the belief that it was 

 Calamitean. It now proves not to be so, but is a branching non-arti- 

 culated plant, lackiug the nodes and the longitudinal internodal canals so 

 characteristic of the Calamites. It has a large parenchymatous medulla 

 with radiating prolongations separating the very distinctly defined wedges 

 of the vascular zone. From the peculiar shape thus given to transverse 

 sections of the medulla the author has assigned to the plant the provisional 

 name of Astromyelon. In the place of the canal of Calamites the thin 

 medullary extremity of each vascular wedge is occupied by a few larger 

 and often more conspicuous vessels than those forming the rest of the 

 wedge. The medulla further differs from that of Calamites in being rarely 

 fistular. Each wedge consists of a series of regular radiating laniinse of 

 barred vessels separated by numerous medullary rays — the latter varying 

 in composition from a solitary cell to numerous cells arranged in single 

 vertical series. Nearly all the stems and branches of this plant are 

 found to be decorticated. One specimen found by Mr. Butterworth is 

 surrounded by a very thin cortex consisting only of three or four layers 

 of parenchymatous cells. Astromyelon forms another example of the 



2g2 



