The Student's Elements of Geology Part 51

LYCOPODIACEAE-- LEPIDODENDRON.

(FIGURES 453, 454 and 455. Lepidodendron Sternbergii. Coal-measures, near Newcastle.

(FIGURE 453. Branching trunk, 49 feet long, supposed to have belonged to L.

Sternbergii. (Foss. Flo. 203.))

(FIGURE 454. Branching stem with bark and leaves of L. Sternbergii. (Foss. Flo.

4.)

(FIGURE 455. Portion of same nearer the root. Natural size. (Ibid.)))

(FIGURE 456. Lycopodium densum.

a. Living species. New Zealand.

b. Branch; natural size.

c. Part of same, magnified.)

About forty species of fossil plants of the Coal have been referred to this genus, more than half of which are found in the British coal-measures. They consist of cylindrical stems or trunks, covered with leaf-scars. In their mode of branching, they are always dichotomous (see Figure 454). They belong to the Lycopodiaceae, bearing sporangia and spores similar to those of the living representatives of this family (Figure 457); and although most of the Carboniferous species grew to the size of large trees, Mr. Carruthers has found by careful measurement that the volume of the fossil spores did not exceed that of the recent club-moss, a fact of some geological importance, as it may help to explain the facility with which these seeds may have been transported by the wind, causing the same wide distribution of the species of the fossil forests in Europe and America which we now observe in the geographical distribution of so many living families of cryptogamous plants. The Figures 453-455 represent a fossil Lepidodendron, 49 feet long, found in Jarrow Colliery, near Newcastle, lying in shale parallel to the planes of stratification. Fragments of others, found in the same shale, indicate, by the size of the rhomboidal scars which cover them, a still greater magnitude. The living club-mosses, of which there are about 200 species, are most abundant in tropical climates. They usually creep on the ground, but some stand erect, as the Lycopodium densum from New Zealand (see Figure 456), which attains a height of three feet.

(FIGURE 457. Lepidostrobus ornatus, Brong. Shrops.h.i.+re.

a. (Body) half natural size.

b. Portion of a section, showing the large sporangia in their natural position, and each supported by its bract or scale.

c. Spores in these sporangia, highly magnified. (Hooker Mem. Geological Survey volume 2 part 2 page 440.)

In the Carboniferous strata of Coalbrook Dale, and in many other coal-fields, elongated cylindrical bodies, called fossil cones, named Lepidostrobus by M.

Adolphe Brongniart, are met with. (See Figure 457.) They often form the nucleus of concretionary b.a.l.l.s of clay-ironstone, and are well preserved, exhibiting a conical axis, around which a great quant.i.ty of scales were compactly imbricated.

The opinion of M. Brongniart that the Lepidostrobus is the fruit of Lepidodendron has been confirmed, for these strobili or fruits have been found terminating the tip of a branch of a well-characterised Lepidodendron in Coalbrook Dale and elsewhere.

EQUISETACEAE.

(FIGURE 458. Calamites Sucowii, Brong.; natural size. Common in coal throughout Europe.)

(FIGURE 459. Stem of Figure 458, as restored by Dr. Dawson.)

(FIGURE 460. Radical termination of a Calamite. Nova Scotia.)

To this family belong two fossil genera of the coal, Equiset.i.tes and Calamites.

The Calamites were evidently closely related to the modern horse-tails (Equiseta) differing princ.i.p.ally in their great size, the want of sheaths at the joints, and some details of fructification. They grew in dense brakes on sandy and muddy flats in the manner of modern Equisetaceae, and their remains are frequent in the coal. Seven species of this plant occur in the great Nova Scotia section before described, where the stems of some of them five inches in diameter, and sometimes eight feet high, may be seen terminating downward in a tapering root (see Figure 460).

(FIGURE 461. Asterophillites foliosus. (Foss. Flo. 25.) Coal-measures, Newcastle.)

(FIGURE 462. Annularia sphenophylloides, Dawson.)

(FIGURE 463. Sphenophyllum erosum, Dawson.)

Botanists are not yet agreed whether the Asterophyllites, a species of which is represented in Figure 461, can form a separate genus from the Calamite, from which, however, according to Dr. Dawson, its foliage is distinguished by a true mid-rib, which is wanting in the leaves known to belong to some Calamites.

Figures 462 and 463 represent leaves of Annularia and Sphenophyllum, common in the coal, and believed by Mr. Carruthers to be leaves of Calamites. Dr.

Williamson, who has carefully studied the Calamites, thinks that they had a fistular pith, exogenous woody stem, and thick smooth bark, which last having always disappeared, leaves a fluted stem, as represented in Figure 459.

SIGILLARIA.

(FIGURE 464. Sigillaria laevigata, Brong.)

A large portion of the trees of the Carboniferous period belonged to this genus, of which as many as 28 species are enumerated as British. The structure, both internal and external, was very peculiar, and, with reference to existing types, very anomalous. They were formerly referred, by M. Ad. Brongniart, to ferns, which they resemble in the scalariform texture of their vessels and, in some degree, in the form of the cicatrices left by the base of the leaf-stalks which have fallen off (see Figure 464). But some of them are ascertained to have had long linear leaves, quite unlike those of ferns. They grew to a great height, from 30 to 60, or even 70 feet, with regular cylindrical stems, and without branches, although some species were dichotomous towards the top. Their fluted trunks, from one to five feet in diameter, appear to have decayed more rapidly in the interior than externally, so that they became hollow when standing; and when thrown prostrate, they were squeezed down and flattened. Hence, we find the bark of the two opposite sides (now converted into bright s.h.i.+ning coal) const.i.tute two horizontal layers, one upon the other, half an inch, or an inch, in their united thickness. These same trunks, when they are placed obliquely or vertically to the planes of stratification, retain their original rounded form, and are uncompressed, the cylinder of bark having been filled with sand, which now affords a cast of the interior.

Dr. Hooker inclined to the belief that the Sigillariae may have been cryptogamous, though more highly developed than any flowerless plants now living. Dr. Dawson having found in some species what he regards as medullary rays, thinks with Brongniart that they have some relation to gymnogens, while Mr. Carruthers leans to the opinion that they belong to the Lycopodiaceae.

STIGMARIA.

(FIGURE 465. Stigmaria attached to a trunk of Sigillaria.)

This fossil, the importance of which has already been pointed out in Chapter 23, was originally conjectured to be an aquatic plant. It is now ascertained to be the root of Sigillaria. The connection of the roots with the stem, previously suspected, on botanical grounds, by Brongniart, was first proved, by actual contact, in the Lancas.h.i.+re coal-field, by Mr. Binney. The fact has lately been shown, even more distinctly, by Mr. Richard Brown, in his description of the Stigmariae occurring in the under-clays of the coal-seams of the Island of Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia. In a specimen of one of these, represented in Figure 465, the spread of the roots was sixteen feet, and some of them sent out rootlets, in all directions, into the surrounding clay.

(FIGURE 466. Stigmaria ficoides, Brong. 1/4 natural size. (Foss. Flo. 32.))

(FIGURE 467. Stigmaria ficoides, Brong. Surface of another individual of same species, showing form of tubercles. (Foss. Flo. 34.))

In the sea-cliffs of the South Joggins in Nova Scotia, I examined several erect Sigillariae, in company with Dr. Dawson, and we found that from the lower extremities of the trunk they sent out Stigmariae as roots. All the stools of the fossil trees dug out by us divided into four parts, and these again bifurcated, forming eight roots, which were also dichotomous when traceable far enough. The cylindrical rootlets formerly regarded as leaves are now shown by more perfect specimens to have been attached to the root by fitting into deep cylindrical pits. In the fossil there is rarely any trace of the form of these cavities, in consequence of the shrinkage of the surrounding tissues. Where the rootlets are removed, nothing remains on the surface of the Stigmaria but rows of mammillated tubercles (see Figures 466, 467), which have formed the base of each rootlet. These protuberances may possibly indicate the place of a joint at the lower extremity of the rootlet. Rows of these tubercles are arranged spirally round each root, which have always a medullary axis and woody system much resembling that of Sigillaria, the structure of the vessels being, like it, scalariform.

CONIFERAE.

(FIGURE 468. Fragment of coniferous wood, Dadoxylon, of Endlicher, fractured longitudinally; from Coalbrook Dale. W.C. Williamson. (Manchester Philosophical Mem. volume 9 1851.) a. Bark.

b. Woody zone or fibre (pleurenchyma).

c. Medulla or pith.

d. Cast of hollow pith or "Sternbergia.")

(FIGURE 469. Fragment of coniferous wood, Dadoxylon, of Endlicher. Magnified portion of Figure 468; transverse section.

b-b. Woody fibre.

c. Pith.

e, e, e. Medullary rays.)

The coniferous trees of this period are referred to five genera; the woody structure of some of them showing that they were allied to the Araucarian division of pines, more than to any of our common European firs. Some of their trunks exceeded forty-four feet in height. Many, if not all of them, seem to have differed from living Coniferae in having large piths; for Professor Williamson has demonstrated the fossil of the coal-measures called Sternbergia to be the pith of these trees, or rather the cast of cavities formed by the shrinking or partial absorption of the original medullary axis (see Figures 468, 469). This peculiar type of pith is observed in living plants of very different families, such as the common Walnut and the White Jasmine, in which the pith becomes so reduced as simply to form a thin lining of the medullary cavity, across which transverse plates of pith extend horizontally, so as to divide the cylindrical hollow into discoid inters.p.a.ces. When these inters.p.a.ces have been filled up with inorganic matter, they const.i.tute an axis to which, before their true nature was known, the provisional name of Sternbergia (d, d, Figure 468) was given. In the above specimen the structure of the wood (b, Figures 468 and 469) is coniferous, and the fossil is referable to Endlicher's fossil genus Dadoxylon.

(FIGURE 470. Trigonocarpum ovatum, Lindley and Hutton. Peel Quarry, Lancas.h.i.+re.)

(FIGURE 471. Trigonocarpum olivaeforme, Lindley, with its fleshy envelope.

Felling Colliery, Newcastle.)

The fossil named Trigonocarpon (Figures 470 and 471), formerly supposed to be the fruit of a palm, may now, according to Dr. Hooker, be referred, like the Sternbergia, to the Coniferae. Its geological importance is great, for so abundant is it in the coal-measures, that in certain localities the fruit of some species may be procured by the bushel; nor is there any part of the formation where they do not occur, except the under-clays and limestone. The sandstone, ironstone, shales, and coal itself, all contain them. Mr. Binney has at length found in the clay-ironstone of Lancas.h.i.+re several specimens displaying structure, and from these, says Dr. Hooker, we learn that the Trigonocarpon belonged to that large section of existing coniferous plants which bear fleshy solitary fruits, and not cones. It resembled very closely the fruit of the Chinese genus Salisburia, one of the Yew tribe, or Taxoid conifers.

ANGIOSPERMS.

(FIGURE 472. Antholithes. Felling Colliery, Newcastle.)

The curious fossils called Antholithes by Lindley have usually been considered to be flower spikes, having what seems a calyx and linear petals (see Figure 472). Dr. Hooker, after seeing very perfect specimens, also thought that they resembled the spike of a highly-organised plant in full flower, such as one of the Bromeliaceae, to which Professor Lindley had at first compared them. Mr.

Carruthers, who has lately examined a large series in different museums, considers it to be a dicotyledonous angiosperm allied to Orobanche (broom-rape), which grew, not on the soil, but parasitically on the trees of the coal forests.

(FIGURE 473. Pothocites Grantonii, Pat. Coal-measures, Edinburgh.

c. Stem and spike; 1/2 natural size.