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I.—Notes on some Fossil Plants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

William Carruthers
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Extract

It is known that the friends of the late distinguished palæontologist and naturalist, Hugh Falconer, established a Fellowship in memory of himself, and in connexion with the University of Edinburgh. This Fellowship is especially intended to encourage the study of palæontology. To give to botanical students who may devote their attention to the investigation of fossil plants a fair opportunity of securing a Falconer Fellowship, Professor Balfour intends, as he informs me, to devote more time in his lectures to vegetable palæontology, and he has prepared a carefully revised and enlarged edition of that portion of his Class-book devoted to this subject, which will be published separately, and will supply a long desiderated manual, not only to the students of his own class, but to students in all institutions in which botany is treated in a scientific method. Having obtained Prof. Balfour's permission to use one of the plates and some wood-cuts which have been prepared under my direction, to illustrate this separate publication, I now employ them for the purpose of recording some notes bearing upon the subjects figured, and which I have not yet published.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 9 , Issue 92 , February 1872 , pp. 49 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1872

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References

page 53 note 1 There is a group of Carboniferous fossils having remarkable amorphous outlines which so resemble the vegetative portions of the Podostemmaceœ (to which Lacis belongs) that I have for some time been looking out for evidence to confirm or set aside my suspicion that they belong to this order. The plants to which I refer are mostly included in Schimper's genus Racophyllum (Traité Pal., vol. i., p. 684), and supposed by him to be the primary fronds of ferns. The physical conditions existing at the time when the shales of the Coal-measures were being deposited would specially suit the habits of this curious order of plants, the foliage of which has the aspect of thallogenous cryptogams, while the reproductive organs are those of dicotyledons.

page 53 note 2 The phrase “corresponding to” is somewhat vague, but I cannot Understand in what sense it is used by Dr. Dawson in the following statement made regarding the Antholite spike in his Memoir already quoted (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxii., p. 133), and repeated in the second edition of his Acadian Geology (p. 438). “Such spikes may be regarded as corresponding to a leaf with fruits borne on the edges, in the manner of the female flower of Cycas.” I fail to see that any correspondence can exist between so complex a structure as a primary axis bearing not only its own foliar appendages, but in their axils secondary leaf-bearing and fruit-bearing axes, and the simple open carpellary leaf of Cycas.

page 54 note 1 These specimens are now in the collections of the Geological Department of the British Museum.

page 56 note 1 My colleague, Dr. Trimen, has pointed out to me the remarkable fruits of Mr. Miers'genus Sciadotenia (Contr. to Botany, vol. iii., p. 340, pl. 138), which are supported on elongated carpophores that are gradually developed beyond the termination of the floral axis, as the fruits advance towards maturity. This singular structure led to a misapprehension of the nature of the carpophores in the first instance, and should modify the general statement I have made above; but inasmuch as we are not likely to find affinities among the Menispermaceœ to the plants of the Coal Period, it may be allowed to remain in its present connexion.