the possibilities of evolution during the countless ages which separate the forests of the Coal period from those of the present era. We may easily allow preconceived ideas to warp our judgment in attempting to distribute the manifold activities which made up the life of a _Lepidodendron_ among the structural units of the plant-body. CHAPTER XIX. =Seed-bearing plants closely allied to members of the Lycopodiales.= i. _Lepidocarpon._ In 1877 Williamson[662] published an account of some fossil seeds which he referred to Brongniart’s genus _Cardiocarpon_[663], a generic title for certain Gymnospermous seeds. Some of these he identified, on the authority of the author of the species, with _Cardiocarpon anomalum_ Carruthers[664]. Several years later Wild and Lomax described a new type of strobilus from the Lower Coal-Measures of Lancashire[665]. The result of this discovery and of the subsequent examination by Scott of additional material, was to establish the fact that the seeds described by Williamson and generally accepted as Gymnospermous, are in reality sporangia belonging to a Lycopodiaceous cone. The seeds to which Carruthers gave the name _Cardiocarpon anomalum_ are, however, distinct from those described under the same name by Williamson and are those of a true Gymnosperm. For this seed-bearing strobilus Scott[666] instituted the generic name _Lepidocarpon_, which he thus defined: “Strobili, with the characters of _Lepidostrobus_, but each megasporangium was inclosed, when mature, in an integument, growing up from the superior face of the sporophyll-pedicel. Integument, together with the lamina of the sporophyll, completely enveloping the megasporangium, or nucellus, leaving only an elongated, slit-like micropyle above. A single functional megaspore or embryo-sac developed in each megasporangium, occupying almost the whole of its cavity. Megaspore ultimately filled by the prothallus or endosperm. Sporophyll, together with the integumented megasporangium and its contents, detached entire from the axis of the strobilus, the whole forming a closed, seed-like, reproductive body. Seed-like organ horizontally elongated, in the direction of the sporophyll-pedicel, to which the micropylar crevice is parallel.” _Lepidocarpon Lomaxi_, Scott. Fig. 218. An immature cone of _L. Lomaxi_ is practically identical with a _Lepidostrobus_; its sporangia are naked and only acquire their integuments at a later stage. A mature strobilus has a diameter of at least 3 cm. and is about 4 cm. in length. As in typical _Lepidostrobi_, the axis bears spirally disposed sporophylls, and each sporophyll has a long narrow pedicel approximately at right angles to the cone axis with its distal end expanded into a broad and thick lamina (fig. 218, B).