OF THE FOSSIL PLANTS OF THE COAL-MEASURES. 
59 
doubts expressed long ago on this point remain not only unremoved, but strengthened 
by further researches. My cabinet contains nearly fifty sections of these fruits, and I 
have examined others in the cabinets of my friends. That the sporangia of these 
strobili adhere to the sporangiophores in a manner closely resembling those of the 
modern Equisetaceae , as pointed out by Mr. Carruthers, is undoubtedly true; and, 
assuming the Catamites to be Equisetacece , the above fact might be deemed a strong 
confirmation of the conclusion arrived at by the above observers. Mr. Carruthers, in 
addition, thinks that he sees elaters attached to the spores, which conclusion, if true, 
would be an important additional fact pointing in the same direction. But, for reasons 
to be given immediately, I am unable to accept this interpretation of the structures in 
question. Notwithstanding what has been done by the two eminent observers referred 
to, sufficient remains to be discovered in this fruit to justify my re-examination of it. 
Its general plan of construction is, as Mr. Carruthers has shown, very different from 
that of Asterophyllites Dawsoni. It has a jointed axis with enlarged nodes, each of 
which gives off appendages which are alternately bractigerous disks, somewhat 
resembling those of Aster ophyllites Dawsoni deprived of their sporangia, and verticils 
of sporangiophores, which are almost identical in their organization, as well as in their 
mode of sustaining their sporangia, with those of the living Equisetums. Mr. 
Carruthers has figured all these structures in his memoir referred to, but on a small 
scale ; Mr. Binney has figured them on a much larger scale, but without including 
some features which appear to me important, especially in connexion with the trans- 
verse sections. The only sections of this latter class which that gentleman has given 
in his monograph on Catamites and Calamodendron are two on plate iv., both of 
which have been made in the plane of the verticillate sporangiophores, so that those of 
the bractigerous disks and of the internodes are not represented by him. I have not 
deemed it necessary to reproduce any longitudinal sections, because Mr. Binney’s 
excellent figures on his plate v., combined with the smaller ones of Mr. Carruthers, 
leave little to be desired in this direction. 
Plate VI. fig. 33 is a transcript of a specimen in my cabinet, with about nine foliar* 
disks; whilst at v and v', owing to the removal of the surface of the specimen and the 
consequent disappearance of the central series of leaves, tangential sections of some of 
the sporangiophores are brought into view. We here see, as Mr. Carruthers has 
already pointed out, that the foliar disks (7c") reach nearly to the surface of the fruit, 
where they break up into verticils of leaves, the latter being abruptly bent upwards, 
almost at right angles to the plane of the disk. This illustration enables us to under- 
stand Plate VI. fig. 34, which represents a transverse section made in the plane of the 
foliar disk (fig. 33, 7c"). At c we have part of the central vascular axis ; 7c is the cellular 
lenticular disk; at t we have the bases of the upturned bracts intersected transversely, 
whilst at t' we have sections of the ends of those of the next inferior, verticil, 
which, as Mr. Carruthers has described, always alternate with those of the two neigh- 
bouring foliar verticils. In Plate VI. fig. 35 we have part of the periphery of a 
i 2 
