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4 NOTICE OF A FOSSIL LYCOPODIACEOUS FRUIT.
Ill respect of the latter family, I united to tlie large stems and
blanches which form the genus Lepidodendron certain spikes, or cones
of fructification, which appeared to me to be the cones of these gigantic
Lycopodiacece, and which I designated by the name Lejndostrohis.
Since then, these relations have been completely confirmed by the
observations of Dr. Joseph Hooker on several specimens of Lepido-
slrobus* enclosed in nodules of carbonate of iron, from the English
coal-field, the internal structure of which had been so well preserved
as to exhibit, much better than T had seen, the form of tlie sporangia
borne on the scales of these cones, and the nature of the spores con-
tained in them.
Another specimen, remarkably Avell preserved, the origin of wdiich
was unknown, had been previously described by our illustrious asso-
ciate E. Brown, under the name of Triplosporiies. His profound study
of this specimen in 1847, and the additional observations made in his
memoir in 1831,t after the examination of a beautiful specimen which
I showed him in 1849, convinced him of its intimate relations to ie-
pidoHtrubus, from which he hesitated to consider it as generically dis-
tinct.
But the specimen described by Robert Brown, ^ as well as that of
the Museum at Strasbourg, half of which had been given to the Mu-
seum at Paris, and which T showed him, presents only short portions
of those cones ; that described by Robert Brown belongs evidently to
the summit of a cone ; that which I had studied appeared to j)roceed
from its base, but the perfect specimen which is the subject of this
notice shows that it rather belonged to the middle portion of one of
these spikes of fructificatiou. Indeed, the lower portion of these cones
presents veiy remarkable differences of organization, which must mate-
rially modify the characters ascribed to these fossils, and appear to in-
dicate greater differences between them and Lepidoslrobus than one
would have supposed, if the organization of these latter fruits has
been fully understood from the specimens described by Dr. Joseph
Hooker.
^
* 'Memoirs of tlie Geological Survey of Great Britain,' vol. ii. p. 440.
t "Some Account of JVv'^^i/'o.vpor/fey, an Undeseribcd Fossil Fruit." Transactions
of the Linnean Society, vol. xx. p. 469, 1851. (Read to the Society
June 15th, 1817.)
I This specimen was obtained from the collection of Baron Roger, and a
transverse section preserved in the collection of the Marquis de Dre now forms
part of the collection of tlie Museum of the Jardin des Plantes.