The aerial branches of _Tmesipteris_ possess a central cylinder of separate xylem groups in which the protoxylem occupies an internal position (fig. 120, C and E, _px_) enclosing an axial parenchymatous region. The cells of a few layers of the inner cortex immediately outside the endodermis are rendered conspicuous by a dark brown deposit. The cortex as a whole is composed of uniform parenchymatous tissue. In the lower part of the aerial shoots and in the rhizome the xylem forms a solid strand without protoxylem elements and conforms more clearly to that of _Psilotum_. In this short account of the anatomy of _Tmesipteris_ no mention is made of the effect produced on the stele by the departure of leaf-traces and of vascular stands to supply branches. Miss Sykes[48] in a recently published paper on the genus has shown that the exit of a leaf-trace does not break the continuity of the xylem of the stele, while the exit of a sporophyll-trace is marked by an obvious gap. Evidence is adduced in support of the conclusion that this difference, which at first sight appears to be one of morphological importance, is in reality merely a question of degree and “is due to the earlier preparation for the formation of ‘sporophyll’ than leaf-traces.” Miss Sykes gives her adherence to the view that the “sporophylls” of _Tmesipteris_ are branches and not leaves, but despite the arguments advanced this interpretation seems to me less probable than that which recognises the sporophyll as a foliar organ. Prof. Lignier[49] has pointed out that if Miss Sykes’s conclusion as to the axial nature of the sporophyll in _Tmesipteris_ is accepted, it diminishes the force of the comparison between the sporophylls of that genus and _Sphenophyllum_ as those of the latter can hardly be regarded as other than foliar organs. Both members of the Psilotales may, as Boodle has suggested, be regarded as descendants of a common parent in which the aerial stems possessed a fluted or stellate cylinder of mesarch xylem. There can be no doubt as to the significance of the morphological resemblances between the Psilotales and the genera _Sphenophyllum_ and _Cheirostrobus_, but the position of _Tmesipteris_ and _Psilotum_ in the plant-kingdom may probably be best expressed by adopting the group-name Psilotales rather than by transferring the recent genera to the Sphenophyllales. One of the most striking differences between the Psilotales and the genus _Lycopodium_ is in the form of the sporophylls and sporangia; in _Lycopodium_ a single sporophyll bears a unilocular sporangium, but in the Psilotales the sporophyll may be described as a bilobed structure homologous with a foliage-leaf, bearing a sporangiophore which consists of a short stalk terminating in a bilocular or trilocular synangium; the short stalk receives a special branch from the vascular bundle of the sterile portion of the sporophyll[50].