FLEMINGITES. 



43 



cone there are macrospores in the sporangia, resembling those by Mr. Carruthers as the 

 sporangia of Flemingites. This is the first instance that has come to my knowledge of a 

 fossil cone containing both microspores and macrospores. It appears to have been found 

 in the Drift deposits of the valley of Volpe, in Haute-Garonne, by M. Dabadie ; but, if it 

 is, as M. Brongniart asserts, identical in structure, so far as its upper part is concerned, 

 with Dr. Brown's specimen, there is no doubt that it originally came from the 

 Carboniferous strata. 



The learned author says at page 424, " Get epi presente done, comme les Lycopodiacees 

 des genres Selaginella et Isoetes, des sporanges de deux natures, les uns, vers le sommet 

 de I'epi, eontenant des microspores, c'est a dire, des antheridies ; les autres, situes vers la 

 base de I'epi, renfermant des macrospores ou spores germinatives. 



" La forme et le mode d'insertion des sporanges, leur grand volume, le numbre 

 considerable de macrospores qu'ils renferment, I'absence de toute trace de ligne de 

 dehiscence reguliere, font surtout ressembler ces organes a ceux des Isoetes ; mais dans 

 ces plantes ces sporanges sent inseres sur la base meme des feuillcs qui naissent d'une tige 

 tres-com^te et bulbiforme. Dans la plante fossile, au contraire, ces sporanges sont portes 

 par des sortes de bractees, ou feuilles squamiformes, reunies en un epi, qui, comme ceux 

 des Selaginella, terminait probablement les rameaux. 



II y a done la une combinaison particuliere de caraeteres : sporanges analogues a ceux 

 des Isoetes reunis en un epi semblable a celui des Lycopodes et beaucoup plus grand." 



M. Brongniart has been so kind as to forward to me a drawing of a sporangium and 

 the macrospores contained in it, as well as of the microspores from his cone. 



§ 21. Schimper. — Dr. Schimper ' describes and figures the same fossil as M. Brongniart 

 has treated of, and, terming it " Lepidostrohus Dabadianus, Sch., describes it as oblongo- 

 cylindraceus, centim. \\\ longus, in medio centim. 5 latus, extus cicatricibus 

 tectus hexagonis milhm. 6 — 8 latis, totidem altis, exacte contigiis, in medio tuberculo 

 irregulari laminae deciduaj residue instructis, secundum ordinem ^-^ dispositis ; 

 microsporis strobili dimidium supcrius occupantibus, illis preecedentis siniilibus ; 

 macrosporis sporangia dimidii inferioris tenentibus multo majoribus, sphgericis, tetraedri 

 solum cacumen monstrantibus." 



Dr. Schimper appears to distinguish the macrospores of his Lepidostrohus Dabadianus 

 from the capsules described by Goldenberg ; and he classes my Wigan specmiens, which 

 evidently are the uncompressed forms of the same fossil, found in splint coals, with that 

 author's macrospore. Under the head of Sigillaria he says (p. 105) : 



' ' Traite de Paleontologie vegetale, ou la Flore du Monde Primitif dans ses rapports avec les forma- 

 tions geologiques et la Flore du Monde actuel.' Part I, vol. ii, p. 69. 



