The Geological History of PlantsDawson, John William, Sir
Science
The Geological History of Plants
Dawson, John William, Sir
Paleobotany
If, now, we compare the vegetation of these and similar ancient plants
with that of modern Rhizocarps, we shall find that the latter still
present, though in a depauperated and diminished form, some of the
characteristics of their predecessors. Some, like _Pilularia_, have
simple linear leaves; others, like _Marsilea_, have leaves in verticils
and cuneate in form; while others, like Azolla and Salvinia, have
frondose leaves, more or less pinnate in their arrangement. The first
type presents little that is characteristic, but there are in the
Erian sandstones and shales great quantities of filamentous and linear
objects which it has been impossible to refer to any genus, and which
might have belonged to plants of the type of _Pilularia_. It is quite
possible, also, that such plants as _Psilophyton glabrum_ and _Cordaites
angustifolia_, of which the fructification is quite unknown, may have
been allied to Rhizocarps. With regard to the verticillate type, we are
at once reminded of _Sphenophyllum_ (Fig. 20), which many palæobotanists
have referred to the _Marsiliacæ_, though, like other Palæozoic Acrogens,
it presents complexities not seen in its modern representatives. _S.
primævum_ of Lesquereux is found in the Hudson River group, and my
_S. antiquum_ in the Middle Erian. Besides these, there are in the
Silurian and Erian beds plants with verticillate leaves which have
been placed with the Annulariæ, but which may have differed from them
in fructification. _Annularia laxa_, of the Erian, and _Protannularia
Harknessii_, of the Siluro-Cambrian, may be given as examples, and must
have been aquatic plants, probably allied to Rhizocarps. It is deserving
of notice, also, that the two best-known species of _Psilophyton_
(_P. princeps_ and _P. robustius_), while allied to Lycopods by the
structure of the stem and such rudimentary foliage as they possess, are
also allied, by the form of their fructification, to the Rhizocarps,
and not to ferns, as some palæobotanists have incorrectly supposed. A
similar remark applies to _Arthrostigma_; and the beautiful pinnately
leaved _Ptilophyton_ may be taken to represent that type of foliage as
seen in modern Rhizocarps, while the allied forms of the Carboniferous
which Lesquereux has named _Trochophyllum_, seem to have had sporocarps
attached to the stem in the manner of _Azolla_.
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