220 
Palaeontologie. 
found in the old bed of the Yarra at S. Melbourne, and 
their resemblance to the Calcareous Nodules known as 
Coal Balls. (Geol. Mag. Dec. 5, Vol. III. p. 553—556, with 2 
text-figures, 1906.) 
After discussing the beds in which the nodules are found the 
Author describes them as flattened balls of clay, mixed throughout 
with small fragments of dark brown lignitoid plant remains and 
fragments of charred wood. They appear to be almost entirely com- 
posed of matted fragments of woody and foliaeeous material. These 
nodules are compared with the Coal Balls of the English Coal 
Measures. Arber (Cambridge). 
Coward, K. H., On the structure of Syringodendron , the bark 
of Sigillaria. (Mem. and Proc. Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc. Vol. 
51, Pt. II, N°. 7, 5 pages, with a plate and 2 text-figures, 1907.) 
The specimens described, from the Lower Coal Measures of 
Shore, Lancashire, consist of tangential sections through the bark 
of a Sigillaria, without vascular tissue. The periderm and parichnos 
tissue of the leaf scars, are alone preserved. The latter forms either 
a double or a single row of oval scars, the double row being formed 
by the branching of a single row. It is regarded as possible that the 
parichnos Strands contained patches of sclerised cells. The function 
of the parichnos is regarded as respiratory, and may be directly 
compared as analogous with that of the lenticels of Dicotyledons. 
Arber (Cambridge). 
Hickling, G., The Anatomy of Palaeostachya vera. (Ann. ol Bot. 
Vol. XXI. p. 369—386 with 2 double plates and 4 text figures. 
July 1907.) 
This paper contains the results of a complete re-investigation of 
all the existing sections of Palaeostachya vera. The general external 
appearance of the cone would be fairly represented by the figure 
of Palaeostachya pedunculata published by C. E. Weiss in 1876. It 
was cylindrical and stalked. Round each of the swollen nodes of 
the axis are placed usually eighteen oblique sporangiophores, in the 
axils of about the same number of free bracts. The sporangiophores 
were peltate and very similar to the typical form found in Cala- 
mostachys. Each bore four sporangia. The axis was typically Calamitean 
in its anatomy. In the cortex of each node a complex System of 
supporting tissue occurs. Briefly the stereome structure consists of 
a series of thick rings, one at each node, placed like flanges round 
the cylinder of xylem Strands and sclerized medulla, and braced 
together externally by vertical sub-epidermal sclerized Strands. The 
nodal rings (the ‘discs’ of Williamson) are simply zones of sclerized 
parenchyma occupying the entire width of the cortex and having a 
vertical thickness about equal to their width. Each sclerized ring is 
perforated by nine unsclerized patches, through which the soft 
tissue was continuous. These patches by the decay of the tissues 
appear as ‘canals’ and are so termed by Williamson. 
The primary vascular bundles are generally 18, in pairs, 
probably not alternating at the nodes. Each has a protoxylem 
(carinal) canal on the inner side which is obliterated at the nodes. 
Secondary wood is present at the nodes only. 
The bract-traces leave the bundles nearly at right angles and 
are not divided. Their course is thus quite simple. Each bract had 
