Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885
Various
Science -- Periodicals
If the two fragments of the same wood are, one of them silicified and the
other simply carbonized and preserved in sandstone, the diminution in
volume will have occurred in all directions in the latter of the two.
[Illustration: 12j: FIG. 10.--_Calamodendron,_ fragment of the vascular
portion of the wood carbonized.]
Figs. 9 and 11, which represent a portion of the _fibrous_ region of
Calamodendron wood, may give an idea of the shrinkage that has taken place
therein. In Figs. 11 and 12, which show a few tracheæ and medullary rays
of the ligneous bands of the same plant, we observe the same phenomenon.
We might cite a large number of analogous examples, but shall be content
to give the following: Figs. 13 and 15 represent radial and tangential
sections of the bark of _Syringodendron pes-capræ_. This is the first time
that one has had before his eyes the anatomical structure of the bark of a
_Syringodendron_, a plant which has not yet been found in a petrified
state. It is coal, then, with its structure preserved, that allows of a
verification of the theory advanced by several scientists that the often
bulky trunks of _Syringodendron_ are bases of _Sigillariæ_.
[Illustration: 12k: FIG. 11.--_Calamodendron,_ from Autun; prosenchymatous
portion of the wood silicified, X200.]
[Illustration: 12l: FIG. 12.--_Calamodendron,_ from Autun; vascular portion
of the wood silicified.]
If we refer to Fig. 13, which represents a radial vertical section running
through the center of one of the scars that permitted the specimen to be
determined, we shall observe, in fact, a tissue formed of rectangular
cells, longer than wide, arranged in horizontal series, and very analogous
in their aspect to those that we have described in the suberose region of
the bark of Sigillariæ. Fig. 15 shows in tangential section the fibrous
aspect of this tissue, which has been rendered denser through compression.
Fig. 14 shows it restored. In Fig. 13, the external part of the bark is
occupied by a thick layer of cellular tissue that exists over the entire
surface of the trunk, but particularly thick near the scars, exactly as in
the barks of the Sigillariæ that we have formerly described. Finally, at
_b_, we recognize the undoubted traces of a vascular bundle running to the
leaves. If the bundle appears to be larger than that of the Sigillariæ,
this is due to the flattening that the trunk has undergone, the effect of
this having been to spread the bundle out in a vertical plane, although
its greatest width in the first place was in a horizontal one.
[Illustration: 12m: FIG. 13.--_Syringodendron pes-capræ_; from Saarbruck;
radial vertical section, X200.]
[Illustration: 12n: FIG. 14.--Suberose cells restored.]
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