266 
Review. 
to accept the views of Grand ’Eury as to the development of the 
aerial shoots of Sigillaria from pre-existing rhizomes of the 
Stigmarian type; the evidence, however, seems to be still somewhat 
vague and unsatisfactory. An excellent account of the anatomy of 
Stigtnaria and its rootlets is given ; our knowledge of the latter has 
received an interesting addition in Professor Weiss’s discovery of a 
vascular connection between the central strand and the cortex. 
The Bothrodendreae have a chapter to themselves; in this 
ancient group of Lycopods, going back to the Devonian, the 
anatomical characters, recently determined by Mr. Lomax, are like 
those of a Lepidodendron, while the superficial features rather 
suggest the smooth-barked Sigillarias. The cones afford no certain 
criterion, for Mr. Watson’s Botlirostrobus somewhat resembles the 
strobilus of a recent Selaginella, while Zeiller’s Lepidostrobus Olryi, 
identified by Mr. Kidston with the cone of Bothrodendron 
minutifolium is of the type of other Lepidostrobi, though on a 
small scale. We shall soon have a very complete knowledge of 
Bothrodendron , if Professor Weiss’s identification of his Stigtnaria 
with centripetal wood as belonging to this genus should be confirmed. 
The last few pages of chapter XVIII are occupied with General 
Considerations on fossil Lycopodiales. The anatomical evolution of 
the group, in relation to the increasing dominance of the secondary 
wood, is traced, while the apparent absence of secondary phloem 
suggests to the author that “ the physiological division of labour may 
have been less complete in the tissue-systems of the Palaeozoic 
Lycopods than in the more highly specialized organs of such an 
extinct genus as Lyginodendron or than in recent plants ” (p. 269). 
The next chapter is concerned with Lepidocarpon and Miadestnia 
“ seed-hearing plants closely allied to members of the Lycopodiales,” 
which, as the author says, teach us that “ certain Lycopodiaceous 
plants of the Palaeozoic era had reached an important stage in the 
evolution of a seed ” (p. 275). His further point—“ the value of 
this discovery as an argument in favour of the view that some 
Gymnosperms are derived from Lycopod ancestors ”—will not 
meet with such general acceptance. 
The second half of the volume is devoted to Ferns and Fern¬ 
like plants and begins with a useful sketch of the recent Ferns, in 
which just those points that are of importance to the palaeobotanist 
are selected for consideration. The author, while accepting current 
views as to the important position of the Pteridosperms in the 
Palaeozoic Floras, rightly urges the need for a critical consideration 
of the facts. He speaks with some sarcasm of allowing the “ ferns 
or fern-like plants the peculiar position of universal ancestors,” but 
it must be remembered that there is no a priori improbability in all 
the seed-plants having had a common ancestry, but rather the 
reverse. That many of them were derived from the Ferns he 
would be the first to admit. 
The following passage is both amusing and just: 
“ Like the earlier writers who described fossils as lusus natures 
fashioned by devilish agency to deceive too credulous man, the 
discovery of seed-bearing plants with the foliage of ferns threatened 
to disturb the mental balance of palaeobotanists ” (p. 282). 
The first family of fossil Ferns to be described is that of the 
Osmundaceae, a group which has now come to be of the greatest 
interest, owing to the work of Kidston and Gwynne-Vaughan, who 
have succeeded in tracing back its history to the Permian or beyond. 
Their results are based on anatomical evidence, but the antiquity of 
