49 
is directly connected with that of the leaf formations of 
the ascending axis. 
As I have already observed, M. Goeppert’s and Mr. 
Binney’s previous figures represent a structure altogether 
different from that now described by Mr. Binney. Instead 
of the continuous inner vascular cylinder of the latter M. 
Goeppert’s figure displays two detached, unsymmetrically 
arranged, vascular bundles in the interior of the medullary 
cavity. I have already affirmed my conviction that these 
belonof to intruded rootlets of a Sti^maria, and are in no 
respects part of the true m.edullary axis. On the other 
hand Mr. Binney says that “they are certainly not in- 
truded rootlets, as anyone who examines the learned 
author’s plates can satisfy himself.” On this point Mr. Car- 
ruthers writes to me on November 2nd, “No one who is 
accustomed to sections of Stigmaria can fail to see that 
Goeppert has mistaken the accidental rootlets of Stigmaria 
penetrating the decayed axis for an organic part of that 
axis.” I may allow this opinion of an experienced botanist, 
with which I wholly concur, to neutralise that of Mr. 
Binney, who further says, “ It is very improbable that they” 
(ic. Goeppert’s vascular rootlets) “ had ever been introduced 
into the axis after the pith had been removed.” To this I 
reply that it is an extremely rare thing to find any 
such axis which does not contain more or less of these 
rootlets. My cabinet is full of such examples, and in two 
specimens on the table, one of Vvdiich has been lent me by 
Captain J. Aitken of Bacup, similar rootlets not only exist 
in the centrai axis but have penetrated the medullary rays 
as in M. Goeppert’s specimen. 
Mr. Binney, referring to my comments upon his previous 
memoir, says that “in that memoir mention is only made 
of the large vascular bundles found in the axis, without 
calling them vascular or any other vessels.” I do not very 
clearly understand what this sentence means, but I presume 
it is intended to imply that Mr. Binney never affirmed that 
