Notes. 
320 
and associated parenchyma, surrounded by phloem composed of large 
sieve-tubes with numerous sieve-plates on the lateral walls, and phloem- 
parenchyma; an endodermis and pericycle surround each stele, and 
in the case of the annular steles these layers occur both internally and 
externally. At the nodes the outer annular stele bends up into the 
leaf-stalk, and a branch is also given off from the margin of a gap 
formed in the inner annular stele ; the axial vascular strand may or 
may not be in continuity with the meristele of the leaf. The petiole 
is traversed by a single stele, similar in shape to that of certain 
Cyatheaceous Ferns ; towards the top of the leaf-stalk the stele alters 
its form, and gradually gives off separate U' s ^ a P e< ^ branches to 
supply the pinnae. 
The most interesting feature in the structure of the pinnules is the 
marked papillose form of the lower epidermal cells. The roots have 
a triarch stele enclosed by a few layers of thick brown sclerous cells. 
In structure Matonia pedinata presents points of agreement with 
several families of Ferns, on the whole approximating more closely to 
Cyatheaceae than to any other family ; but the peculiarities are such 
as to fully confirm the conclusion previously drawn from external 
characters that Matonia should be placed in a separate division of the 
Filices. 
After comparing the structure of the Malayan species with that of 
other genera, the paper concludes with an attempt to give an account 
of the geological history of the Matonineae. The genera Laccopteris 
and Matonidium are dealt with at some length, and reference is made 
to other Mesozoic Ferns, which may probably be included in the 
same group. 
The data furnished by an examination of palaeontological evidence 
lead to the conclusion that in Matonia we have a survival of a family 
of Ferns, now confined to a few localities in Borneo and the Malay 
peninsula, and represented by two living species, which in the Mesozoic 
epoch had a wide geographical range, being especially abundant in 
the European area. 
STUDIES IN THE MORPHOLOGY OP SPORE-PRODUC- 
ING MEMBERS : IV. LEPTOSPORAN GIATE PERNS.— By 
F. O. Bower, Sc.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Botany in the 
University of Glasgow 1 . The characters used in current classifications 
1 Abstract of a paper read before the Royal Society, April 20, 1899. 
