472 
SYRINGODENDRON. 
of many of them must have been fifty or sixty 
feet, at least.* 
Count Sternberg has applied the name Syrin- 
godendron to many species of Sigillaria, from the 
parallel pipe-shaped flutings that extend from 
the top to the bottom of their trunks. These 
trunks are without joints, and many of them 
attain the size of forest trees. The flutings on 
their surface bear dot-like, or linear impressions, 
of various figures, marking the points at which 
the leaves were inserted into the stem. This 
fluted portion of the Sigillariae, formed their ex- 
ternal covering, separable like true bark from 
the soft internal axis, or pulpy trunk ; it varied 
in thickness from an inch to one-eighth of an 
inch, and is usually converted into pure coal* 
(See PI. 56, Fig. 2. a, h, c.) 
A fleshy trunk surrounded and strengthened 
only by such thin bark, must have been inca- 
pable of supporting large and heavy branches 
at its summit. It therefore probably terminated 
abruptly at the top, like many of the larger 
species of living Cactus, and the abundant dis- 
position of small leaves around the entire extent 
of the trunk seems to favour this hypothesis. 
* M. Ad. Brongniart found in a coal mine in Westphalia near 
Essen, the compressed stem of a Sigillaria laid horizontally, to 
the length of forty feet ; it was about twelve inches in diameter 
at its lower, and six inches at its upper extremity, where it di- 
vided into two parts, each four inches in diameter. The lower 
end was broken off abruptly. Bindley and Hutton’s Foss. Flora, 
vol. i. p. 153. 
