Fossil plants, Vol. 3 : $b A text-book for students of botany and geologySeward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
Science
Fossil plants, Vol. 3 : $b A text-book for students of botany and geology
Seward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
Paleobotany
_Calamopitys Saturni_ Unger.
Our knowledge of this and other species is confined to stems and
petioles. One of the largest examples of the species is a piece of
stem with a diameter of 1·5 cm.: the single stele consists of a
parenchymatous pith enclosed by secondary xylem made up of tracheids
with 4–8 rows of bordered pits and medullary rays more than one cell
broad and of considerable depth. Between the inner edge of the wood
and the pith are groups of primary xylem (fig. 454, B, _x_) which,
like those in _Lyginopteris_, constitute the leaf-traces: each has a
single internal protoxylem strand (fig. 455, B). The comparatively
wide cortex consists of parenchyma with a hypoderm of the _Sparganum_
type. Each primary xylem-strand passes out as a single leaf-trace
through the secondary xylem and on emerging divides into two as in
_Lyginopteris_: these branch in the cortex and the two are replaced by
six in the leaf-base (fig. 454, B–D). As seen in figs. 454, C, 455, A,
the boundary between the stem proper and the decurrent leaf-base is
marked by a line of stereome strands. The petioles of _Calamopitys
Saturni_ agree generally in structure with the imperfect specimens on
which Unger founded his genus _Kalymma_[491], so named in reference
to the structure of the hypodermal zone. A specimen described by
Solms-Laubach as a _Kalymma_ petiole occurs in organic connexion with
a stem of _Calamopitys_ (fig. 454, C: a detached petiole is shown in
fig. 454, D). The identification by White[492] of this attached petiole
with Unger’s _K. grandis_ has been confirmed by Scott and Jeffrey. A
fuller account of _Kalymma_ (fig. 456) is given on a later page, as the
petioles so named belong to more than one species of stem.
[Illustration: Fig. 454. _Calamopitys Saturni._ B, stem with
leaf-base; _x_, primary xylem and pith; black patches represent
leaf-traces; C, stem with two leaf-bases; D, section of petiole. (After
Solms-Laubach.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 455. _Calamopitys Saturni._ A, stem with
leaf-bases; × 5. B, stele showing leaf-trace after emerging from the
secondary xylem; × 16. (After Zalessky.)]
In _Calamopitys Saturni_ we have a plant agreeing with _Lyginopteris_
in the possession of secondary xylem of the manoxylic type and in the
structure of the common primary bundles, while it is distinguished
from _Lyginopteris_ by the greater number and by the structure of the
bundles in the axis of the leaf.
_Calamopitys annularis_ (Unger)[493].
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