Br Martiusr on Antediluvian Plants. S71 
a foot long, marked with three annuli produced by the fall of 
the fronds, and with the tubercles arising from the solution of 
the fasciculi of spiral vessels. The Palmacites obsoletus of 
Schlotheim, PI. 16. Fig. 3., and Palmacites annulatus of the 
same author, Fig. 5., agree in many of their characters with 
stems of palms, and the latter, from its umbonate impressions ar- 
ranged in rows alternating with transverse stri{^ or annuli, seems 
to belong to the aculeate palms. 
The following are the characters of the Palmacites : 
An unbranched woody or arhoresceni stem, straight, with the 
surface smooth, or armed with spiniform processes, marked with 
annular cicatrices, which are broader on one side (the back), 
narrower on the other (the belly), and placed alternately or sub- 
spirally at the broader part. Fl.abelliform or pinnate fronds. 
Various genera of arborescent grasses, allied to Bambusa, 
seem to have been much more frequent than palms, in former 
times. Of these plants, to which the older writers applied the 
name of Calamites, some specimens have been figured by 
Succow, in the Act. Theod. Palat. Vol. V. PI. 16, 17, 18, 
Fig. 10. and 11 ; PI. 14. Fig. 8. and 9. Sternberg re- 
presents the smooth culm of a calamite in his work, so often 
cited, PI. 5. Fig. 2; Schlotheim exhibits others longitudinally 
canaliculate over their whole surface, as are all those of Succow, 
and somewhat prominent or contracted at the joints, under the 
names of Calamites cannaformis, interruptus, and nodosus ; 
see his PL 20. Fig. 1, 2, 3. I can scarcely venture to say, whe- 
ther the Calamites scrohictdaius of the same author. Fig. 4., 
should not rather be referred to the palms. Another species of 
Bambusite, found in the sandstone of Scania, is exhibited by the 
celebrated Nelson, in the Act. Acad. Suec. 1820, p, 284, PI. 5. 
Fig. 6., which agrees with various smaller Bambusse, and is, 
tl^efore, with less propriety, referred to Calamus. The nu- 
merous furrows in Bambusites, seem to be owing to the natural 
structure of Bambusa, and not to have arisen from the circum- 
stance, that the fragile tubular culms, perfectly round at first, 
and stuffed full of clay, while they lay overwhelmed in the ge- 
neral ruin, were broken into longitudinal pieces by the weight of 
the superimposed bodies, an equality of pressure on all sides pro- 
