50 HICK : SOME RECENT ADVANCES IN BRITISH PALiEOBOTANY. 
the name of Volkmannia Dawsoni,"^' which differed materially from 
all the spikes previously known. Subsequently he made further 
investigations into its structure, which were published in the Philo- 
sophical Transactions for 1874, 1890, and 1891. But in 1884 Weiss 
had transferred the spike to the genus Bowma7iifes,-f established in 
1870 by Binney for a spike which he named Bowmanites cambrensis,X 
and Williamson adopting this change, the spike became known as 
Bowmanites Dawsoni. Like that of Volkmannia Dawsoni, however, 
this name proved to be a provisional one only, for M. Zeiller in 
studying some fine preparations of the fruit of Sphenophyllum cunei- 
folium, came to the conclusion that Bowmanites Dawsoni was the 
fruit of that species of Sphenophyllum. In a short paper contributed 
to the Comptes rendus de V Academie des Sciences in 1892, he gives 
the reason for this conclusion, and states that the spikes of Spheno- 
phyllum cuneifolium were, in every respect, identical in structure, as 
well as in the size of the various parts, with the spike described by 
Williamson. In 1893 he published a full account of his observations 
with illustrations, II which, according to Williamson and Scott, § leave 
no doubt as to the essential agreement between the undoubted 
strobili of Sphenophyllum which he investigated, and the English 
specimens described as Bowmanites Dawsoni, The question as to 
specific identity, however, they prefer for the present to leave an 
open one. 
Here then we have another fruit-spike brought into its proper 
relations with the plants to which it belongs, and it becomes possible 
to describe with some fulness both the stems and the reproductive 
organs of Sphenophyllum. We are still somewhat in the dark how- 
ever as to the roots, and our knowledge of the structure of the leaves 
is not complete, but it is scarcely too much to hope that before long 
these deficiencies may be made good. 
As regards the structure and development of the stem of Spheno- 
phyllum and the differences met with in the species whose structure 
* Mem. and Proc. of the Manch. Lit. and Phil. Soc., ser. 3, vol. iv. 
t Steinkohlen-Calamarien, vol. ii. % Palseontographical Society, 
il Memoires de la Societe Geol. de France. Paleontologie, Mem. ii., 1893. 
This Memoir I have not seen. I am indebted for a knowledge of it to the 
Memoir by Williamson and Scott. See next reference. 
§ Phil. Trans., vol. clxxxv. (1894) B., p. 934. 
