48 HICK : SOME RECENT ADVANCES IN BRITISH PAL.^:OBuTANY. 
Early in the following year (1892) a number of fine sections of the 
spike, prepared by Mr. James Binns, of Halifax, were generously 
placed in my hands by my friend Mr. Cash, and were subjected to 
careful examination. It was soon found that they afforded all the 
evidence we required to prove that, as a matter of fact, the axis of 
Calamostachys Binneyana Schimp, has, in all essential points, the 
same structure as the stem of Calcmites. This being so, it was at 
once clear, that the affinities of the spike were with Calamites and 
not with the other types to which it had been previously referred. 
Thanks to the excellence of the preparations, it was even possible to 
go a step further and to indicate, on the ground of certain anatomical 
peculiarities, the type of stem which had borne it as its fruit. 
Among these peculiarities is the presence of a " melasmatic " layer 
of tissue in the sterile bracts of the spike. These bracts have a 
structure which is obviously but a modification of that of the leaves, 
and the " melasmatic " layer agrees in all respects with that already 
noticed in the leaves and stems. On this and other grounds, there 
is no doubt, in my own mind, that these leaves and stems already 
referred to, and Calamostachys Binneyana, are all parts of one and 
the same type of Calamites, which appears to be that known as 
Arthropitys. 
A paper containing the results of the observations made was 
read at the Edinburgh Meeting of the British Association in 1892,* 
at the Geological Society of London in the same year, and before this 
Society in March, 1893. Subsequently it was published in the Pro- 
ceedingSjf where those interested may be referred for details. 
At the end of 1893, an elaborate memoir on Calamites, Cal- 
amostachys and Sphenophyllum, was communicated to the Royal 
Society by the late Prof Williamson and Dr. D. H. Scott, in which 
the structure of Calamostachys Binneyana Schimp. was described in 
detail, and its affinities discussed at considerable length. ^ In the 
result, they seem to have arrived at substantially the same conclusions 
on both matters as I had previously reached, so that it may now be 
* Report 1892, p. 776. 
t Proc. of the Yorksh. Geo!, and Polyt. Sec, vol. xii., 1894. 
tV\\\\. Trang., vol. clxxxv., B. (1893). 
