124 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



The Sigillaria was a tall tree, with a bare trunk regularly pitted by 

 the leaf-scars. It branched at the summit, and bore long narrow leaves, 

 as above said; its fruit is not known. Its internal structure has been 

 examined in some very perfect specimens, by foreign and Engb'sh bota- 

 nists (fossil-botanists as some folks call them), — Brongniart, Hooker, 

 Dawson, and others, [t is a good deal like the Cycas, known in our 

 green-houses as a Cape plant, but in some respects more like Ferns. 

 Nor is there any living family of plants which tallies with it, though 

 in a rough way it has been supposed by good judges to belong to the 

 great tribe Coniferae — to which our fir-trees, pines, cedars, and junipers 

 belong. Hooker regards it as nearer the club-mosses, and especially 

 near to Lejndodenclron. 



