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
A transverse section of a slightly flattened stem is shown in fig.
416, A, the bases of three petioles give to it an angular form. Its
dimensions are approximately 10 × 4 cm. The ground-tissue of two of
the petioles is continuous with that of the stem, while that of the
third leaf-stalk is cut through near its separation from the stem and
its adaxial face is already defined by a hypodermal band of stereome,
_d_. The surface of the stem is characterised by fine longitudinal
ribs caused by the slightly projecting stereome in the outer cortex,
and from the narrow furrows between the leaf-bases adventitious roots
emerge in vertical series. The position of an interfoliar furrow is
shown by a small arrow in fig. 416, A. There are three steles, 2–3
cm. × 6–10 mm. in diameter: each agrees very closely in structure
with the single stele of _Heterangium_. _Medullosa anglica_ may be
described as a polystelic _Heterangium_ and as having the same relation
to _Heterangium_ as regards the stelar system as _Primula auricula_
bears to the monostelic _Primula_. The central core of the stele (the
black patches in the diagram, fig. 416, A) consists of an anastomosing
system of tracheal groups embedded in an irregular parenchymatous
reticulum. The large primary tracheids reach a diameter of 150μ and
have multiseriate pitting: at the periphery of the primary xylem there
is a more definite grouping of tracheids as in _Heterangium_, and the
slightly internal (mesarch) protoxylem elements are associated with
scalariform and densely spiral tracheids (fig. 416, B, C) narrower than
the more internal reticulate elements. The secondary xylem is manoxylic
as in Cycads, tracheids in 2–4 radial series alternating with medullary
rays 1–3 cells broad and usually of considerable depth (fig. 416, B).
The principal rays are continuous with the parenchymatous matrix of the
central core. Thick-walled tubular elements, no doubt of the nature of
sieve-tubes, form a conspicuous feature in the phloem.
The three steles occasionally divide and fuse with one another. The
tissue between the steles is crushed and disorganised and in the living
plant was probably small in amount. In the imperfectly preserved
inner cortical region there is a sinuous band of secondary parenchyma
(periderm; fig. 416, A, _c_) developed from a deep-seated phellogen; in
older stems this formed the superficial tissue after the fall of the
leaves. There is no definite boundary between the cortex of the stem
and the petiole-bases except when the hypoderm cuts across the cortex
preparatory to the separation of a leaf-stalk. The stem-cortex and
the ground-tissue of the petioles consist of parenchyma with numerous
secretory canals, not sacs only as in _Heterangium_, and are abundantly
supplied with scattered vascular bundles of collateral and exarch
structure.
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