290 
HICK : CALAMOSTACHYS BINNEYANA. 
describe Calamostachys Binneyana as the fruit of Galamites in 1867, 
although the structure of the axis was in some respects misinter- 
preted and in others but imperfectly known. 
Binney* in making it the fruit of his Calamodendron commune 
was in practical agreement with Carruthers, since the plant so named 
by him is nothing eke than a form of Calamites, and on the continent, 
with some exceptions, this view of its relations has generally pre- 
vailed. But this determination ignored the fact that, as then 
interpreted, the central part of the axis of the spike was vascular, 
and in that respect differed so much from the stem of Calamites 
that it was not easy to see how the one could be continued into the 
other. 
Realising the importance of this difficulty, Williamson from an 
early period rejected the Calamitean view of the affinities of the 
spike, and in several of his memoirs has contended that they lie 
rather with the Lycopodiaceoe.f Not only so, but in 1869 he 
described a spike! which differs in important points from Calamos- 
tachys, as " the only British strobilus, of which the internal organisa- 
tion has hitherto been described, that has any claims to be regarded 
as the fruit of Calamites^ and in a re-description of it from fresh 
material in 1888,|| the same view is substantially maintained. Thus, 
both on positive and negative grounds, Calamostachys Binneyana 
was shut out from all relationship with Calamites. How persistently 
Williamson has maintained this position was shown by Mr. Cash in 
a paper contributed to the Proceedings of this Society in 1887, § and 
there is no need to repeat the quotations from Williamson's memoirs 
there given. 
Looking at the matter in the light of the new evidence brought 
forward in what has preceded, it will probably be conceded that the 
establishment of the existence of a parenchymatous pith in the axis 
of the spike removes the chief ground for Williamson's suggestion of 
* Loc. cit. 
t Op. cit , Pt. v., 1871, p. 65 ; Pt, x., 1S80, p. 504 ; Pt, xi., 1881, p. 299. 
£ Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. 
Series 3, vol. 4. 
Williamson, Op. cit., Pt. xiv., pp. 47-48. 
^ Proceedings of the Yorksh. Geol. and Polytechnic Soc, vol. ix., 1887. 
