PLANTS IN THE COAL FOUMATION. 
479 
Conclusion. 
Besides these Genera which have been enu- 
merated, there are many others whose nature is 
®till more obscure, and of which no traces have 
^een found among existing vegetables, nor in 
strata more recent than the Carboniferous 
Series.^' Many years must elapse before the 
character of these various remains of the pri- 
meval vegetation of the Globe can be fully un- 
derstood. The plants which have contributed 
most largely to the highly-interesting and impor- 
tant formation of Coal, are referrible principally 
to the Genera whose history we have attempted 
^Hefly to elucidate : viz, Calamites, Ferns, Ly- 
^opodiacese, Sigillariae, and Stigmarise. These 
materials have been collected chiefly from the 
Carboniferous strata of Europe. The same kind 
cf fossil plants are found in the coal mines of 
America, and we have reason to believe 
t^iat similar remains occur in Coal formations of 
the same Epoch, under very different Latitudes, 
and in very distant quarters of the Globe, e. g. 
m India, and New Holland, in Melville Island, 
mid Baffin’s Bay. 
The most striking conclusions to which the 
present state of our knowledge has led, respect- 
* Some of the most abundant of these have been classed under 
me names of Asterophyllites, (see PI. 1, Figs. 4. 5.) from the 
^•^eUated disposition of the leaves around the branches. 
