Dr Martius on Antediluvian Plants, 
diicing a corresponding equality in the fractures. It therefore 
remains doubtful to what species the sulcate calamites are pro- 
perly to be referred, the determination of which I leave to 
others who may have had opportunities of seeing more genera 
of Arborescent grasses ; for I am not acquainted with any that 
in all respects corresponds with the structure of the petrified 
plants. Nor does it seem at all inconsistent with probability 
that these forms of primeval vegetation are now entirely lost. 
The Bambusites may be characterised as follows : 
An arborescent culm or caudex^ simple, or very rarely verti- 
cillato-ramose, articulate, with contracted or continuous sutured 
genicidi, and smooth or canaliculate 
The CuclphoriB^ Dracontc,, Pandani, Yuccas, and Vellosia, of 
which last I have seen enormous stems in the subalpine regions 
of Brasil, constitute another series allied to the palms. This 
family, which differs in structure from most of the monocotyle- 
dones, in having the stem broadly expanded above by a more or 
less perfect dichotom}^, and is pretty intimately connected on the 
one hand, with the Cycadeae, and on the other with the Conife- 
rae, also makes its appearance among the primitive forms. Nor 
is it at all to be wondered at, that specimens should occur in our 
coal mines of the same order with plants of which we still have 
living examples as evidences of a former world, the most ancient 
of all our vegetable productions, and of -which may be adduced 
as an instance, the famous dragon4ree of Orotava. The marks 
by which they may be distinguished, are chiefly connected with 
the circumstance, that the stems are invested all around with the 
semi-amplexicaul base of the leaves which remains after the up- 
per parts have fallen off, and hence resemble a surface covered 
with imbricate scales, spirally arranged in various ways, accord- 
ing to the various disposition of the leaves. It appears that these 
scales, being imbricated upwards, are not distinct from each 
other in their whole extent, and therefore may easily be distin- 
guished from the scales of Filicites, so called. The thicker 
these leaves are the more gibbous does their persistent base be- 
come on the back, and leaves a concavity in the impressions left 
in slate-clay, which has been erroneously considered by authors 
as the cicatrix left by the fall of the leaf. The variously dcnti- 
