ME. E. W. BINNEY ON SOME LO WEE-COAL-SEAM FOSSIL PLANTS. 
595 
Goldenberg gives a description and figures of a cone and spores which he considers 
to be the fructification of Sigillaria *. That author, however, does not give any further 
evidence of the connexion of the supposed organs of fructification with the stem of 
Sigillaria than had been known in England for years, as previously mentioned. The 
spores he figures as belonging to Sigillaria are exactly the same as those found by me 
in the inside of Stigmaria. 
A specimen found in the roof of the same seam of coal in which Nos. 2, 3 & 8 were 
met with, but at a different place, was given to me by Mr. W. Butterworth, junior, of 
Moorside, near Oldham, and enables me to give evidence, equally strong with that 
adduced by Dr. Hooker to prove that Lepidostrobus was the fruit of Lepidodendron , to 
show that a Lepidostrobus was the fruit of Sigillaria. Dr. Hooker, in his excellent 
paper on this subject f, says, “The doctrine of morphology teaches us that the cone is 
nothing more than the leafy apex of a branch whose leaves are modified in form, 
generally to the end that they shall perform the office of protecting organs to repro- 
ductive bodies ; this is the case of the pine cone, that of the Lycopodium , or Club Moss, 
and many other plants.” This specimen is shown in the annexed 
woodcut (fig. 6), of its natural size, and exhibits sporangia, like 
those described by Dr. Hooker in his memoir previously quoted, 
arranged around the axis of the cone, which does not afford the 
rhomboidal scars characteristic of the Lepidodendron, but presents 
ribs and furrows, with scars, arranged in quincuncial order, like 
a small specimen of Sigillaria organum. Certainly, if the axis of 
continuation of a branch of Lepidodendron , the axis of this cone 
is equally entitled to be classed as the branch of a Sigillaria. 
The organs of fructification, which have been called by geolo- 
gists fossil cones, and have been classed under the genus Lepido- 
strobus , may not only have belonged to Lepidodendron and Sigil- 
laria , but it appears nearly certain in my mind that some of them also belonged to Cala- 
mites. In a paper published many years since, the apparent connexion of Calamitcs and 
Sigillarice was discussed and noticed by the author Since that time he has collected 
much further evidence on the structure of Calamites, which he proposes at some future 
time to communicate to the Society in a separate memoir. 
In all the large specimens of Sigillaria vascularis the outer radiating cylinder has 
been considerably disarranged by pressure, the original cylindrical form of the plant 
having been changed into that of an elongated oval. This has been more especially the 
case with that part of the plant composed of lax and coarse cellular tissue, forming the 
* Flora Saraepontana fossilis. Die flora der Yorwelt Saarbriickens, von Fa. Goldenbekg, l] tcs Heft, Tafel x. 
figs. 1 & 2. 
t Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, vol. ii. part 2. p. 452. 
+ Philosophical Magazine for November 1847, p. 259. 
MDCCCLXV. 5 M 
