62 Maslen . — The Relation of Root to Stem in Catamites . 
(sometimes more) on each branch. Each bud usually produces a single 
root below the first leaf-sheath and from the lower side of the branch. 
In the aerial shoots the roots usually abort, but from the buds formed 
on the rhizome the roots develop whether the buds themselves grow 
farther or not 1 2 3 . In Catamites we can discover no trace of these c rhizo- 
phoric buds ’ : the roots pass right through the wood of the main stem 
and are directly connected with its primary xylem. 
Many observers have tried to show that the roots of Catamites were 
in some way connected with the infra-nodal organs of Williamson. Thus 
Renault states that : ‘ Les racines adventives, quand elles se developpaient, 
6taient en rapport avec ces organ es que nous considerons comme des 
organes particuliers expectants, que nous distingueroris sous le nom 
C organes rhiziferes V Again, in describing a specimen of his Arthropitus 
lineata exhibiting some large roots, he says : ‘ Les racines avortees ne 
sont reprdsentees que par les organes rhiziferes dont nous avons deja 
plusieurs fois pa rid ; dans Techantillon qui nous occupe ces organes sont 
bien conserves ; ils sont diriges du centre a la Peripherie en s’abaissant 
un peu dans leur course ; leur section transversale est elliptique ; ils sont 
nettement formes d’une partie centrale composee de cellules polyedriques 
a minces parois, et d’une gaine de cellules prismatiques allongees dans 
le sens de l’organe et dont les parois portent de nombreuses ponctuations ; 
la ou les racines se sont developpees les organes rhiziferes n’existent plus V 
The £ organes rhiziferes ’ of Renault are certainly the same as William- 
son’s infra-nodal organs, as Renault himself agrees 4 * . Jeffrey, following 
Renault, and comparing the Calamites with their modern representatives, 
goes so far as to state that the more conspicuous series of nodules on 
casts of Calamites are not impressions of infra-nodal canals, but of the 
short cylindrical medullary cavities of modified rhizophorous branches, 
homologous with those of Equiseta 6 , i. e. with the little developed buds 
from which many of the roots of the rhizome arise, and described by 
Jeffrey as ‘ rhizophoric buds. 1 
Grand’ Eury 6 has recently described the distribution of the infra- 
nodal tubercles on the stems of Catamites, and he states that they are 
absent on the horizontal rhizomes and occur only on the ascending portions 
of the subterranean stems. If this account of their distribution is correct, 
their absence from the rhizomes is difficult to account for on the assumption 
that they are rhizophorous. 
1 Campbell, Mosses and Ferns, p. 447. 
2 Flore fossile du bassin houiller et permien d’Autun et d’jfepinac, Part II (text), 1896, p. 89. 
Published in Etudes des Gites Mineraux de la France. 
3 Loc. cit., p. 106. 
4 Loc. cit., Flore fossile d’Autun, Part II, p. 89. 
6 Mem. Bost. Soc, Nat. Hist., vol. v, No. 5, 1899, P- 188. 
6 Foret fossile de Calamites Suckowii, Comptes Rendus, 1897. 
