1907-8.] Morphology of the Cone of Lycopodium cernuum. 365 
was re-examined by Scott, who figures several sporangia from it, but he does 
not refer to Williamson’s statement that the sporophylls may be coherent, 
only stating, in reference to the abortive sporangia found on one side of the 
section, “ the sporophylls in this part are crowded, and apparently somewhat 
displaced.” * 
Further study of this section leads me to entertain Williamson’s view, 
that the sporophylls are coherent distally, as highly probable if not actually 
established. The full grounds for this cannot be given here, and require the 
refiguring of the section, but a brief description with reference to fig. 53 of 
Williamson’s memoir will bring out the most important facts. It should be 
mentioned that the peripheral structures of the left-hand side of the cone 
are omitted in this very accurate figure. 
The section has the stele of the axis displaced to one side by a large 
Stigmarian root, and this stele is cut obliquely. It does not appear to have 
been hitherto recognised that the whole section is an oblique one, the 
obliquity of the section of the stele not being due to its displacement. As 
Williamson and Scott both state, the section is cut near one end of the 
strobilus. I would add that it is cut near to the summit of a mature cone, 
and that it affords evidence that in Spencerites, as in L. cernuum , the sporo- 
phylls were here inserted at a more acute angle on the axis. The right- 
hand side of the section in fig. 53 is the higher on the cone, and the section 
follows the plane of the pedicels or sporophyll-bases on the right-hand side. 
Passing obliquely across the cone, it cuts the structures round the upper and 
lower sides at a lower level, and on the left-hand side the section necessarily 
passes across sporangia and sporophylls of two or sometimes three whorls.f 
On the right-hand side of the figure, when the section has passed in the 
plane of a whorl of sporophyll-bases, the broad pedicels of these are seen 
widening out at their distal extremities where the laminae are, as usual, 
wanting. Intervening between the sporophylls are the sporangia belonging 
to the alternating whorl lower on the cone (cf. fig. 4, above). 
These sporangia are all in an arrested condition of development, and 
their structure is exactly paralleled by the abortive sporangia found con- 
stantly near the summit of the mature cone of L. cernuum. Immediately 
outside these intervening sporangia, at one level traversed by the section, the 
distal ends of the whorl of pedicels appear to be connected by bands of 
tissue. In the light of the cone of L. cernuum we can recognise these 
* Phil. Trans , B. 189, p. 94. 
t An example of this is seen in a figure in Dr Scott’s paper {Phil. Trans., B. 189, PI. xiv. 
fig. 13), which comes from this side of the section ; the sporopliyll-base here belongs to the 
whorl vertically above that to which the sporangium and its insertion belong. 
