Pachytheca. 
BY 
Sir J. D. HOOKER, K.C.S.I., F.R.S. 
With Plate VIII. 
I N the year 1853 Mr. H. E. Strickland, F.R.S. , 
communicated to the Journal of the Geological Society 
of London a paper entitled ‘ On the distribution and organic 
contents of the Ludlow Bonebed, in the districts of Woolhope 
and May Hill, with a note on the seed-like bodies found in 
it by Dr. J. D. Hooker/ The seed-like bodies in question, to 
which I subsequently gave the name of Pachytheca , were 
thick-walled, hollow spheres. They were smooth on the sur- 
face ; their cavity was empty ; and they were of an exceedingly 
brittle, carbonised substance, and so opaque that even with 
the aid of that skilful lapidary, the late Mr. Cuttell, I was 
unable to obtain any section that transmitted light. 
The walls of the fossil appeared to consist of elongated cells 
radially disposed, and I concluded that Pachytheca might be 
the sporangium of a lycopodiaceous or allied plant, a conclu- 
sion assented to by the botanical and palaeobotanical friends 
who were so good as to examine the specimens with me, or 
for me. 
Nothing further appears to have been known of the nature 
of Pachytheca until 1875, when specimens of it were communi- 
cated by the late Mr. R. R. Grindrod, of Malvern, to the Rev. 
Mr. Symonds, of Pendock, with the request that they might 
be submitted to me for examination. In a letter to myself 
Mr. Grindrod stated that he had himself knocked these out of 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. III. No. X. May 1889. ] 
L 
