The form in which a Stigmarian rootlet is usually preserved is shown in fig. 210, D; the single vascular bundle strand with its endarch protoxylem (fig. 210, B, _px_) is enclosed by a ring of inner cortical parenchyma (fig. 210, F, _c_¹); the cells in immediate contact with the xylem having usually disappeared. Beyond the middle cortical space a second cylinder of parenchyma represents the outer cortex (F, _c_³) in which a layer of dark-walled cells (_b_, fig. 210, F) may be compared with the hypodermal band in the main Stigmarian axis (G, _b_). These Stigmarian rootlets, usually less than 1 cm. in diameter, are the commonest objects in sections of the calcareous nodules from English coal-seams. A good example of their abundance is shown in fig. 210, D and E; here they have invaded the space formed by the splitting of the secondary cortical tissues along the line of the phellogen and a few are seen here and there in the deeper layers of the phelloderm (_s_, fig. 210, E). Not infrequently the close contact of these ubiquitous rootlets with the tissues of the plant which they have invaded leads to confusion between invader and invaded. Partially decayed tissues lying, probably, under water were penetrated by Stigmarian rootlets in exactly the same way as the roots of recent plants bore through vegetable substances which happen to be in their path. The rootlet bundles are in the first instance composed of the primary tracheae which line the inner edge of the secondary xylem; these receive additions from the meristematic zone, and thus, when seen in the cortex outside the stelar region, are found to consist in part of primary and in part of a fan-shaped group of secondary tracheae. On the other hand, the monarch bundle as it appears in a free rootlet is usually composed entirely of primary elements (fig. 210, A–C, F). It has been shown by Weiss[601] that in the Stigmarian rhizome of what is probably _Lepidodendron fuliginosum_, the rootlet bundle is accompanied by a parichnos strand, but this has not been detected in the ordinary _Stigmaria ficoides_. When free from the parent axis a rootlet usually consists of an outer cylinder of cortex enclosing a broad space in which remnants of lacunar tissue are sometimes seen. The relation of the external features of a well-preserved Stigmarian rootlet-scar to the internal structure of a petrified rootlet is very clearly seen on comparing such sections as those represented in fig. 210, D, with the form of the scar on a Stigmarian cast. A specimen figured by Hooker[602] in 1848 affords a good illustration of the structure of a rootlet-base as seen in an unusually complete cast; this correlation of anatomical and surface features is clearly described also by Williamson[603] and by Solms-Laubach[604]. It is probable that even during life the rootlets were hollow for a part at least of their length as are the roots of _Isoetes_ (fig. 133, G).