OF THE FOSSIL PLANTS OF THE COAL-MEASURES. 
345 
structure beyond a granular texture which may merely be the result of mineralization. 
The inner wall, a, figs. 65, 66, 66b, and 66c, though sharply defined, is very thin. So 
long as I only saw isolated specimens, those represented in figs. 65 and 66, seriously per- 
plexed me, being apparently sporangia full of minute spores. The discovery by Mr. Binns 
of the specimen fig. 64, left no further room for doubting that these curious objects are 
macrospores, of which three are inclosed within a cellular sporangium- wall of the 
usual type. This sporangium-wall is not, like those described in the previous pages 
(fig. 57 d), composed of prosenchyma, but of parenchymatous cells, whose slightly 
elongated axes are vertical to the surface of the spore. The latter is also the case 
with the crushed Lepidostrobus, microspores from which are represented in figs. 48 
and 77. This difference shows that whilst we have two types of strobilus in the Halifax 
beds, there is no difference, so far as the sporangium- walls are concerned, between those 
containing the macrospores and those with true microspores. Hence there exists the 
possibility, at least, that the latter two may belong to the same plant. 
The fringes of radiating appendages which clothe the exteriors of these spores vary 
much both in their shape and arrangement. They are often simple, as is seen in 
fig. 58. In fig. 63 most of them are so, whilst in fig. 71 there are no branched ones, 
yet the former of these two figures is so intermediate between the latter and the 
common form represented by figs. 58 and 60, as to leave little room for doubting that 
these several examples merely represent different states of the same spore. I noticed 
in several of the specimens the peculiar outline represented by d, e, in figs. 65 and 66, 
and which looked as if the section had intersected a small projecting peduncle sur- 
rounded by a thickened ring. This peculiar form is seen in the two left-hand spores of 
fig. 64, whilst fig. 64'“ represents the same appendages as they appear in another spore 
in Mr. Spencer’s cabinet, enlarged 40 diameters. In fig. 64 these appendages of the 
several spores appear to converge towards a common centre. That these can have been 
peduncles is, of course, out of the question. It appears to me more probable that they 
may have been appendages similar to the dome-shaped projections developed at the 
apex of the macrospore of Pilidaria globulifera, each of which encloses a funnel-shaped 
entrance into the spore; in these recent objects we also find a thickened ring surround- 
ing the base of this appendage, very similar to that seen at <?, e, in figs. 64, 65, and 66. 
In 64* we see clear indications that a canal, f passed along this appendage in the 
case of the fossil spores. 
Figs. 65 and 66 are further interesting because of the spherical bodies contained 
within their interior. These are manifestly small cells developed within the spore. 
In many of those of fig. 66 we see the protoplasmic and other cell contents preserved 
in the interior of each cell. I think we can scarcely regard these objects otherwise 
than as the endospermic cells of the macrospore, destined to be developed into a pro- 
thallus. If this is a correct explanation of them their presence in a fossil coal-plant 
becomes an interesting fact.* 
* Since -writing the above Mr. Isaac Earnshaw, of Oldham, has kindly prepared for my inspection a 
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