118 



THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Eeturning to the more special subject of this work, I 

 may remark that the lepidodendroid trees and the ferns, 

 both the arborescent and herbaceous kinds, are even more 

 richly represented in the Carboniferous than in the pre- 

 ceding Erian, I must, however, content myself with 

 merely introducing a few representatives of some of 



the more common 

 kinds, in an ap- 

 pended note, and 

 here give a figure 

 of a well-known 

 Lower Carbonifer- 

 ous lepidodendron, 

 with its various 

 forms of leaf-bases, 

 and its foliage and 

 fruit (Pig. 43), and 

 a similar illustra- 

 tion of an allied 

 generic form, that 

 known as Lepido- 

 phloios* (Fig. 44). 



Another group 

 which claims our 

 attention is that 

 of the Calamites. 

 These are tall, cy- 

 lindrical, branch- 

 less stems, with 

 whorls of branch- 

 lets, bearing needle- 

 like leaves and spreading in stools from the base, so as to 

 form dense thickets, like Southern cane-brakes (Fig. 46). 

 They bear, in habit of growth and fructification, a close 



Fig. 41. — Beds associated with the main coal 

 (S. Joggins, Nova Scotia). 1, Shale and sand- 

 stone—plants with Spirorbis attached ; rain- 

 marks (?). (2, Sandstone and shale, eight 

 feet — erect Calamites; 3, Gray sandstone, 

 seven feet ; 4, Gray shale, four feet — an erect 

 coniferous (?) tree, rooted on the shale, passes 



. up through fifteen feet of the sandstones and 

 shale.) 5, Gray sandstone, four feet. 6, Gray 

 shale, six inches — prostrate and erect trees, 

 with rootlets, leaves, Naiadites, and Spiror- 

 bis on the plants. 7, Main coal-seam, five 

 feet of coal in two seams. 8, Underclay ,' with 

 rootlets. 



" For full descriptions of these, see " Acadian Geology." 



