52 HICK : SOME RECENT ADVANCES IN BRITISH PAL.EOBOTANY. 
Mr. Binns, partly in my own cabinet and partly in the Cash collec- 
tion of sections of fossil plants at the Manchester Museum, Owens 
College. On anatomical grounds alone the conclusion was first 
reached that all the forms of Kaloxylon, without exception, were 
roots. The question then arose as to whether these roots could be 
brought into relation with any of the known Carboniferous stems, and 
attention was directed to this point. In the end it became evident 
that certain characteristic and critical tissues of Kaloccylon were 
actually identical with the homologous tissues of Lyginodendron, 
and that this was not the case with any of the other Carbon- 
iferous types. On this ground the inference was made that 
the plant fragments known as Kaloxylon Hookeri were the roots 
of Lyginodendron, the various forms being simply different stages in 
their development. A paper embodying my observations and 
deductions was communicated to the Manchester Literary and 
Philosophical Society* on the 31st of May last year, which by a 
singular coincidence was the day on which the previously communi- 
cated paper by Williamson and Scott, was read at the Royal Society. 
Thus by independent methods and by independent workers, the 
conclusion has been reached that the specimens of Lyginodendron 
and Kaloxylon are the stems and roots respectively of one and the 
same plant, and as such they must henceforth be placed together. 
Lyginodendron and Heterangium. 
The two genera placed at the head of this section were both 
instituted by Williamson in 1873, who at the same time gave descrip- 
tions and figures of the specimens on which they were based, f In 
subsequent communications to the Royal SocietyJ he made further 
additions to the knowledge gained in the first instance, and finally 
undertook a complete re-investigation of them in conjunction with 
Dr. D. H. Scott. As a result of this joint work, a memoir on the 
structure of the vegetative parts of Lyginodendron and Heterangium 
was sent to the Royal Society in the Spring of this year, in which 
our knowledge of their anatomy and histology appears to have been 
* Mem. and Proc , 4th ser., vol. ix., 1894-5. 
t Phil. Trans., 1873. % Phil. Trans., 1874, 1876, 1887, 1890. 
