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ON THE FOSSIL FRUCTIFICATIONS OF THE YORKSHIRE COAL MEASURES. 
BY WILLIAM CASH, F.G.S. 
No. 1. Calamostachys. 
The fructifications of the fossil plants of the Coal Measures are 
of great interest to the botanist, whether studied from an evolu- 
tionary point of view, or simply as guides to the classification of the 
plant-remains with which they are usually found associated ; and 
none of them are more interesting than the small cone-like fruit 
spikes so well known to palseobotanists by the generic name Calamo- 
stachys. 
The coal-measures up to the present time have yielded to 
geologists no remains of plants referable to the large group of true 
flowering plants (Angiosperms), for the Scotch fossil Pothocites 
grantoni, which is often quoted in text books of geology as an 
example of a fossil dicotyledonous plant nearly allied to the recent 
arums, had its supposed systematic position questioned so long ago 
as the year 1874, by Professor W. C Williamson, F.R.S., and his 
views have since been abundantly justified by the researches of 
Mr. Robert Kidston, F.G.S. , who, ^vith fuller material at his command 
has, in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for May, 1883, 
demonstrated that Pothocites is the fruit of Bornia (Archceocalamites) 
radiata, Brogn., or of a closely allied species of the same genus. 
With the exception of some spores and a few examples of the 
mycelium of a fungus, the whole of the carboniferous flora is probably 
restricted to what modern botanists call the Arcliegonlatoi ; since, in 
the present state of knowledge, they may all be referred to either the 
vascular Cryptogams, or to the Gymnosperms. 
Twenty-five years ago the fructifications of the coal flora were 
known, almost without exception, either as casts, by the impressions 
of plants from iron-stone nodules or from shales, or by still more 
imperfect examples found in the grits and sandstones. 
During the last two decades, however, the exploration and study 
of the calcified fossils of the Halifax Hard Bed Coal in Yorkshire, of the 
