The Vascular Branches of Stigmarian 
Rootlets. 
BY 
F. E. WEISS, D.Sc., F.L.S., 
Professor of Botany in Owens College , Manchester. 
With Plate XXVI. 
I N his ‘ Cours de botanique fossile Y and also in his ‘ Etude sur 
les Stigmaria 2 ’ in the Annales des Sciences geologiques, 
Renault has described and figured rootlets of Stigmaria from 
the neighbourhood of Manchester, in which a very delicate 
vascular branch was given off from the stele. Such branches 
were given off according to Renault from each of the three 
protoxylem-groups of what he considered the triarch rootlet 
of Stigmaria and went to supply lateral rootlets ( radicelles ). 
The importance of this observation will be recognized by the 
following conclusion which Renault drew from it : ‘ Ce carac- 
t&re important eloigne toute idee de rapprochement entre les 
organes qiii nous occupent maintenant et les racines des 
plantes cryptogames.’ 
Williamson (’87) in his criticism of this statement 3 points 
out that the rootlets of Stigvtaria branch invariably by 
dichotomy, and states that he has seen nothing like the 
branching figured by Renault in any of the innumerable 
rootlets in his cabinet. 
1 Renault, B., Cours de botanique fossile, PI. XX, Fig. 4. 
2 Renault, B., Annales des sciences geologiques, 1882, PI. II, Fig. 8. 
8 Williamson, W. C. (’ 87 ), p. 32, note 1. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XVI. No. LXIII. September, 1902.] 
