A Revision of the Seed Impressions of the 
British Coal Measures. 
BY 
E. A. NEWELL ARBER, M.A., Sc.D., F.L.S., 
Trinity College , Cambridge ; University Demonstrator in Palaeobotany. 
With Plates VI- VIII and eight Figures in the Text. 
HE occurrence of a variety of impressions or casts of seed-like bodies 
A in the British Coal Measures has been known since the days of John 
Woodward 1 (1729), yet at the present time there is probably no set of 
Coal Measure fossils which stands in greater need of systematic revision 
than these. The most recent list of such objects, published by Dr. Kidston 2 
in 1894, includes only five genera with nineteen species from the whole of 
the British Coal Measures. Of these genera one, Carpolithus , containing 
nearly one-third of the total number of species, is nondescript, and amounts 
to little more than the word ‘ seed ’. It is a useful term under certain cir- 
cumstances, but should be regarded only as a temporary expedient. There 
is little doubt, I imagine, that the Coal Measure seeds which have been 
referred to this genus are of several fundamentally distinct types. 
When determining Coal Measure fossils, one frequently finds that, while 
there is no hesitation as to the specific assignment of a particular seed, there 
is often doubt as to whether such and such a species really belongs to the 
genus to which it has commonly been assigned, and especially whether it 
possesses any real morphological affinity to the other species contained 
therein. In my own case, however, I have found it necessary to defer any 
opinion on such questions until an opportunity should occur for re-investi- 
gating the grouping of Coal Measure seeds in general. 
In attempting this difficult task here, I am well aware that the 
principles on which a nomenclature should be founded are to some extent 
matters of opinion, and that in some cases differences of opinion are likely 
to arise as to matters of fact. The botanical interpretation of the features 
exhibited by a particular impression is sometimes by no means an easy 
1 Woodward (1729), p. 53 . 2 Kidston (’94). 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXVIII. No. CIX. January, 1914.] 
G 
