CO 
LEPIDODRENDON. 
In this class we may place provisionally 
those remarkable trees called Lepidoden- 
dron, which graced the forests of the coal 
era. 
These have been usually referred to the 
genus Lycopodiacicc, the club mosses ; but 
although we may not argue against such a 
position from incongruity in size alone, yet 
even amidst the widest variations from the 
present order of things, such an association 
would still be remarkable as that which 
brings into one family the lofty forest tree, 
rising sixty feet high, and the puny moss 
growing at its feet. The principal external 
characteristic of the species is its ornamen¬ 
tal stem, produced by spiral rows of small 
eminences, the scars of the leaf stalk. 
A trunk of seventy feet with sculptured 
decorations adorning its surface, and thence 
extending along numerous branches, termi¬ 
nated by few and narrow leaves fastened by 
a strong stalk, presents a picture unknown 
amidst the forests of the world at the pre¬ 
sent time. A recent observer has from 
their internal structure ranked them with 
the common house-leek, but whilst their 
