The Geological History of PlantsDawson, John William, Sir
Science
The Geological History of Plants
Dawson, John William, Sir
Paleobotany
The specimens communicated by Prof. Lesquereux and Mr. Lacoe are from the
Lower Carboniferous, and evidently represent a different species with
similar slender pitted stems, often partially denuded of pinnules below;
but the pinnules are much broader and more distant. They are attached
by very narrow bases, and apparently tend to lie on a plane, though they
may possibly have been spirally arranged. On the same slabs are rounded
sporangia or macrospores like those of _Lepidodendron_, but there is no
evidence that these belonged to _Trochophyllum_. On the stems of this
plant, however, there are small, rounded bodies apparently taking the
places of some of the pinnules. These may possibly be spore-cases; but
they may be merely imperfectly developed pinnules. Still the fact that
similar small granules appear on the stems of the Devonian species,
favours the idea that they may be organs of fructification.
The most interesting discovery, however, which results from the study
of Mr. Lacoe's specimens, is that the pinnules were cylindrical and
hollow, and probably served to float the plant. This would account for
many of the peculiarities in the appearance and mode of occurrence of the
Devonian _Ptilophyton_, which are readily explained if it is supposed to
be an aquatic plant, attaching itself to the stems of submerged vegetable
remains and standing erect in the water by virtue of its hollow leaves.
It may well, however, have been a plant of higher organisation than the
Algæ, though no doubt cryptogamous.
The species of _Ptilophyton_ will thus constitute a peculiar group
of aquatic plants, belonging to the Devonian and Lower Carboniferous
periods, and perhaps allied to Lycopods and Pillworts in their
organisation and fruit, but specially distinguished by their linear
leaves serving as floats and arranged pinnately on slender stems. The
only species yet found within the limits of Canada is _Pt. plumula_,
found by Dr. Honeyman in the Lower Carboniferous of Nova Scotia; but as
_Pt. Vanuxemii_ abounds in the Erian of New York, it will no doubt be
found in Canada also.
III.--Tree-Ferns of the Erian Period.
As the fact of the occurrence of true tree-ferns in rocks so old as the
Middle Erian or Devonian has been doubted in some quarters, the following
summary is given from descriptions published in the "Journal of the
Geological Society of London" (1871 and 1881), where figures of the
species will be found:
Of the numerous ferns now known in the Middle and Upper Devonian of
North America, a great number are small and delicate species, which were
probably herbaceous; but there are other species which may have been
tree-ferns. Little definite information, however, has, until recently,
been obtained with regard to their habit of growth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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