Fossil plants, Vol. 2 : $b A text-book for students of botany and geologySeward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
Science
Fossil plants, Vol. 2 : $b A text-book for students of botany and geology
Seward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
Paleobotany
The bulbous enlargement at the base of the Brown seaweed _Laminaria
bulbosa_ Lam.[162] simulates the swollen base of _Pleuromeia_; but a
confusion between these two plants is hardly likely to occur. Above
the Stigmaria-like base the gradually tapered axis, in the less
decorticated specimens, bears spirally disposed transversely elongated
areas consisting of two triangular scars between which is the point
of exit of a leaf-trace. The form of the leaf-scars is best seen on
the face of a mould figured by Solms-Laubach (fig. 134, C): in this
case the two triangular areas appear as slight projections separated
by a narrow groove marking the position of the vascular bundle of the
leaf. The curved lines above and below the leaf-scar probably mark the
boundary of the leaf-base. The two triangular scars are compared by
Solms-Laubach and by Potonié with the parichnos-scars of _Sigillaria_
and _Lepidodendron_ (cf. fig. 146, C), but the large size of the
Pleuromeia scars constitutes an obvious difference though possibly not
a distinction of importance.
The occurrence of a vertical canal filled with carbonaceous material
in some of the stems throws light on the internal structure: the
canal, which is described by Solms-Laubach as having a stellate
outline in transverse section recalls the narrow central cylinder
of a Lepidodendron stem, and this comparison is strengthened by the
presence of obliquely ascending grooves which represent leaf-traces
passing through the cortex. In specimens which have lost more of the
cortical tissues the surface is characterised by spirally disposed,
discontinuous vertical grooves representing portions of leaf-traces
precisely as they appear in similar casts of _Lepidodendron_. There
is no direct evidence of the existence of secondary wood in the stem,
but, as Potonié has pointed out, the greater transverse elongation of
the leaf-scars in the lower part of a cast (fig. 134, A) points to the
production of some secondary tissue either in the vascular cylinder or
cortex, or possibly in both regions.
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