134 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
t Monthly Microscopical 
Journal, Feb. 1, 1869. 
about twenty microscopes were brought, and a very pleasant evening 
was spent in the discussion of the various objects exhibited under 
them.* 
Literary and Philosophical Society op Manchester. 
Ordinary Meeting, December 29th, 1868.— E. W. Binney, F.R.S., 
F.G.S., Vice-President, in the chair. — " Note on the Organs of Fructi- 
fication of Galamodendron" by E. Binney, F.E.S. In my paper on 
Calamodendron, published in vol. xxi. of the ' Transactions of the 
PalaDontographical Society,'! is figured and described a plant with 
organs of fructification attached to it from the lower Brooksbottom 
seam of coal near Ewood Bridge, in the county of Lancaster. The 
plant consists of a stout stem, having traces of ribs and furrows, and 
seven joints at which knots appear. From these last-named parts, 
on each side of the stem, are seen to proceed seven cones, all about 
half-an-inch in length, springing outwards in nearly a horizontal 
direction in the specimen. These cones do not show any trace of a 
central axis ; but are composed of crown-shaped masses, most probably 
of sporangia, contained in receptacles arranged around an axis. Eight 
or nine of these can be seen in one cone. Unfortunately, the specimen 
being in soft shale, no evidence can be obtained of its internal structure, 
so as to ascertain if the sporangia contained any spores. If this is not 
the same plant as Geoppert's Ajpliyllostachys Jugleriana it is very 
closely allied to that plant. 
Mr. John Aitken, of Bacup, furnished me with the specimen. At 
the time the Monograph was published my opinion was that the only 
point in which the specimen differed from that figured and described 
by Ludwig of the fruit of Calamites in Dunker and von Meyer's 
Palaeontographica, vol. x., 1861 to 1863, was that it only possesses 
eight to nine receptacles or cells against his fifteen to sixteen. 
Since that time Captain Aitken, of Irwell Vale, and Mr. John 
Aitken, have been so good as to conduct me to the place where the 
specimens were found, and I have collected myself far more perfect 
and complete specimens than those which had previously come under 
my observation. 
In both Ludwig's and Geoppert's specimens the cones or organs 
of fructification, like the leaves, were arranged in whorls at each node 
of the stem. The same arrangement was observed by me in the first 
specimen from Ewood Bridge which came under my observation. Now, 
although that appears to have been the more common form of attach- 
ment of the cones to the stem, there is undoubted evidence that some 
of these organs occurred at the extremity of the branches ornamented 
with whorls of leaves at their nodes, as is seen in the fructification of 
the common Equisetim. 
The number of receptacles or cells containing sporangia in the first 
specimens I met with were eight to nine in number, but I have since 
found individuals with fifteen to seventeen, showing therefore that the 
Ewood Bridge specimens have a greater resemblance to Ludwig and 
Geoppert's than could be then proved. 
* Report supplied by Mr. R. T. Lewis. f P. 27. 
