_Codonotheca caduca_ Sellards. This genus was founded on some spore-bearing bodies from the Coal Measures of Illinois[348]: nothing is known as to the plant which bore them, but Sellards is inclined to associate them with _Neuropteris decipiens_ Lesq.[349], a species abundant in the same coal-field. Whatever may have been the parent-plant it is probable, as the author of the genus believes, that _Codonotheca_ is the microspore-bearing organ of a Pteridosperm. As shown in fig. 427, 5, the form is that of a stalked cup consisting in the basal portion of a stout axis, the peripheral tissue of which is believed to have been fleshy, containing an axial rod of conducting tissue running up to the floor of the cup, _c_, and then dividing into six vascular strands, each of which forks into two branches. The upper part is composed of six linear segments united basally to form the sloping surface of the cup. On the inner face of each segment is a more or less well-defined depression covered with large elliptical spores ·29–·31 mm. long by ·18–·19 mm. broad (fig. 427, 6, 8). The presence of a median ridge (fig. 427, 8) indicates a bilateral origin. ‘There is no grouping of the spores or other indication of the location of the sporangia, which were doubtless more or less completely immersed in the tissue, the dividing wall disappearing at maturity.’ The spores are seen in fig. 427, 2, 3, on the inner face of the lobes. Some of the specimens have a fairly long pedicel: in the example shown in fig. 427, 1, the fleshy part of the basal portion is not preserved, only the more resistant vascular core. In a later account of these organs Sellards speaks of several lying by the side of a central stalk to which he thinks they were originally attached by slender pedicels. In view of Dr Benson’s interpretation of the morphology of _Telangium_ it is permissible to suggest that if a central sporangium in such a synangium as that of _Codonotheca_ developed a megaspore and the peripheral sporogenous lobes were sterilised, the result would be an arrangement not unlike the apical region of the seed _Physostoma_, the tentacles of which have been homologised with the canopy of _Lagenostoma_. There are obvious difficulties in the way of this, perhaps strained, comparison: the larger size of the spore-bearing linear segments of _Codonotheca_ led Sellards to regard each as a synangium rather than a single sporangium. But precise information as to the structure of the American fossils is not as yet available. If the association of _Codonotheca_ with _Neuropteris_ fronds has any significance it would favour a reference of these organs to the Medulloseae. In the absence of anatomical data it is impossible in some cases to distinguish microspore-bearing organs of the _Codonotheca_ type from small seeds enclosed in a lobed cupule or even seeds with a lobed integument: a case in point is the New Brunswick species _Pterispermostrobus bifurcatus_ Stopes[350].