436 Solms-Laubctch . — On the Fructification 
as has been described already in my Palaeophytologie 1 . The 
transverse section of the ‘ cords ’ shows a stout peripheral 
layer of very thick-walled quite homogeneous and uniform 
cells, bounded on the outside by a simple epidermis without 
ramenta. In the longitudinal section these cells are seen to 
be elongated pointed fibres with thick walls which appear to 
be entirely destitute of pits. In ordinary states of preserva- 
tion this layer of fibres surrounds a cavity in the tissue filled 
with the structureless material of petrification, often also with 
pyrites, and containing only scattered remains of tracheal 
elements. Bounding the cavity there is regularly a simple layer 
of cells, firmly connected with one another laterally, but not 
essentially different in other respects from the fibre-cells ; 
this layer may not unreasonably be supposed to be an 
endodermis, though of this there is no proof. It is only in 
rare and exceptional cases that we find, instead of the central 
cavity, a more or less well-preserved delicate tissue of cells 
with rather wide lumina, in the middle of which is a weak 
and irregularly shaped tracheal strand consisting only of a 
few elements. The smaller transverse sections of the organs 
lying between these ‘ cords ’ are all pressed closely against 
one another, and owing to this pressure are very irregularly 
polygonal. They consist chiefly of thin-walled parenchyma, 
with isolated gum-passages, inclosed in a simple very strongly 
developed and distinct epidermis. In the centre of this homo- 
geneous parenchyma is the tracheal strand with essentially the 
same structure as that of the ‘ cords.’ On the longitudinal 
section I have not been able to demonstrate with certainty 
the portions of tissue which belong to these organs, on account 
of the close crowding and the winding course of all the con- 
stituents of the spadix (Plate XXV, Fig. 2, where a is the 
‘cords/ and b the transverse sections of the organs lying 
between them). 
Going on to the peripheral zone of our section, we find 
that its inner layer is formed of the same elements as those 
1 See the Palaeophytologie, p. 98 [Fossil Botany, Oxford, 1891, p. 96] ; and also 
Plate XXV, figs. 1 1 and 1 2 of the present paper. 
