LEPIDODKNDRON. 
467 
^iaceae, and their size, and abundant occurrence 
among the fossils of the Coal Formation have 
led writers on fossil plants to infer that great 
and moisture, and an insular Position were 
tlte conditions, under which the first forms of this 
family attained that gigantic stature, which they 
•exhibit in deposits of tlie Transition period ; 
thus corroborating the conclusion they had de- 
*'ived from the Calamites associated with them, 
already mentioned.* 
Lindley and Hutton state, that Lepidodendra 
after Calamites, the most abundant class 
®f fossils in the Coal formation of the North of 
England ; they are sometimes of enormous size, 
fragments of stems occurring from twenty to forty- 
five feet long ; in the Jarrow colliery a com- 
pressed tree of this class measured four feet two 
inches in breadth. Thirty-four species of Lepi- 
* The leaves of existing Lycopodiaceee are simple, and ar- 
fanged in spiral lines around the stem, and impress on its sur- 
scars of rhomboidal, or lanceolate form, marked with prints 
the insertions of vessels. In the fossil Lepidodendra, we find 
f large and beautiful variety of similar scars, arranged like scales 
spiral order, over the entire surface of the stems. A large 
^‘vision of these are arborescent and dichotomous, and have their 
■"anches covered with simple lanceolate leaves. Our figure of 
®pidodendron Sternbergii (PI. 55. Figs. 1. 2. 3.) represents all 
these characters in a single Tree from the Coal mines of Swina 
Bohemia. 
"Bhe form of the scales varies at different parts of the same 
those nearest the base are elongated in the vertical di- 
rection. 
