Fossil plants, Vol. 1 : $b [A text-book] for students of botany and geologySeward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
Science
Fossil plants, Vol. 1 : $b [A text-book] for students of botany and geology
Seward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
Paleobotany
_x_, _x_, secondary xylem and medullary rays; _m_, principal
medullary ray. From a section in the Binney Collection, × 50.]
Before passing to other examples of Calamitean stems, reference may be
made to the sections shown in figs. 75 and 76, which illustrate some
further points in the structure of Binney’s stems. In fig. 75 the xylem
tracheids are shown at _x_, and between them the secondary medullary
rays present the appearance of long and narrow parenchymatous cells;
as the section is tangential the characteristic scalariform character
of the tracheids is not shown, the ladder-like bordered pits being
confined to the radial walls of the tracheal elements. The much greater
length than breadth of the cells which form the rays associated with
the xylem tracheids, is a characteristic feature in Calamitean stems.
The breadth of the principal ray, _m_, shows that the section has
passed through the wood a short distance from the pith; in a tangential
section cut further into the wood the breadth of the principal rays
would be considerably reduced. The large medullary-ray tissue consists
of square-walled parenchymatous cells. The more highly magnified
section, in fig. 76, shows a central group of parenchyma containing
a few transversely cut tracheids, but the two kinds of elements are
not clearly differentiated in the figure; this group of cells is an
outgoing leaf-trace which is enclosed by the strongly curved tracheids
of the stem. The section is taken from the node of a stem where several
leaf-trace bundles are passing out to a whorl of leaves; the few cells
intercalated between the tracheids belong to the parenchyma of the
secondary medullary rays.
[Illustration: FIG. 76. Longitudinal tangential section of the same
Calamite as that of figs. 74 and 75, showing a leaf-trace
and curved tracheids at a node. From a section in the Binney
Collection, × 100.]
[Sidenote: ARTHROPITYS. SURFACE FEATURES.]
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