A Note on Wounded Calamites. 
BY 
M. C. STOPES, D.Sc., Ph.D. 
Lecturer in Botany , Manchester University. 
With Plate XXIII and four Diagrams in the Text. 
T interesting case of the formation of callus wood in a wounded Calamite 
Jr\ is shortly described and figured by Seward 1 in his ‘ Fossil Plants \ The 
stem, from which several sections were cut, is about 3 mm. in diameter, 
and is, so far as I am aware, the only case in which such a formation has 
been noted. 
Two specimens showing the healing of wounds in very much larger 
stems have recently come under my observation, and as in both cases the 
wound was deeper than in the Cambridge stem they show more complex 
arrangements in the healing tissues. 
One of these specimens is represented by a series of three slides in the 
collection of the Manchester University Museum, Nos. R 100, R 101, and 
R 102, and is entered in the catalogue as a ‘branching stem.’ The woody 
cylinder, which alone is preserved, is 35 mm. in diameter, and shows, 
therefore, a considerable development of secondary tissue. This is seen 
in general view in Diagrams 1, 2, and 3. The other specimen is a stem 
of about 25 mm. in diameter, also without cortex, of which the two slides 
are in my possession. I obtained them from Mr. Lomax, labelled as 
coming through a node, but comparison with the first series makes it 
clear that they are also through a wound of a very similar nature (see 
Diagram 4). 
In both these cases the wound was so deep as to pass right through 
the tissues to the pith, thus breaking through the vascular cylinder. As 
a result, the formation of new tissue curved round the open ends of the 
broken ring and formed a quantity of wood in the pith cavity in inverse 
orientation to the normal strands. In Professor Seward’s specimen, which 
he kindly lent me for comparison with mine, the wound did not lie so 
deeply, but stopped short of the primary cylinder, leaving the bundle 
1 A. C. Seward, Fossil Plants, vol. i, 1898, pp. 319, 320, Text-fig. 80, 
Annals of Botany, Vol. XXI. No. LXXXII. April, 1907.] 
