The _Asterophyllites_ (_Lign. 42_) had branched articulated stems, with verticillate leaves, arranged perpendicularly to the branches which supported them: but as the foliage is in most instances partially concealed, the natural form is but seldom observable. The original plants are supposed to have been a tribe of flowering dicotyledons, for small seed-vessels resembling those of the Cypress are often found with the foliage. [Illustration: Lign. 42. Asterophyllites equisetiformis; _nat._ _Coal-shale._ (_Foss. Flor._)] [Sidenote: ANNULARIA CARDIOCARPON.] The _Annulariæ_ were herbaceous plants with verticillate foliage like the former, but the whorls were arranged on the same plane with the stems on which they grew, and their remains have a very elegant appearance when expanded in the coal schists. It is supposed that they were aquatic plants, and that the stems and leaves floated on the surface of the water.[118] [118] _Wond._ p. 717. Petrifactions, pp. 27, 43, &c. For coloured figures see Pictorial Atlas, pl. v. Sphenophyllum (_wedge-shaped leaf_). _Lign. 43._--The fossil vegetables thus named, though somewhat resembling in their elegant verticillate foliage the Asterophyllites, differ essentially, and are regarded by M. Brongniart as herbaceous plants related to the _Marsiliaceæ_, or Pepper-worts. The leaves are triangular, truncated at the summit, and very deeply lobed and dentated. The fructification consists of sessile axillary or terminal spikes, composed of verticillate bracteæ, covering the receptacles. This mode of fructification resembles that of the Asterophyllites.[119] [119] For details consult _Tab. des Genres de Vég. Foss._ p. 52. Cardiocarpon.--_Lign. 44. fig. 1._--These are small fossil fruits or seed-vessels, which much resemble those of the Thuja or _Arbor-vitæ_, and are so often found imbedded with masses of the foliage of Asterophyllites, that it is conjectured they belong to those plants. They occur in groups of from five to twenty, and evidently were _didymous_, _i.e._ grew in pairs. _Fig. 1a_. is an enlarged view, to show the surface left by the attachment of the twin-seed. [Illustration: Lign. 43. Fig. 1.--Sphenophyllum Schlotheimii; _nat._ 2.--Sphenophyllum erosum. _Coal-Shale._] Trigonocarpum. _Lign. 44. figs. 3. 4._--These fruits, which resemble those of certain Palms, are often met with in the coal-mines of Leicestershire and Yorkshire; frequently occurring in groups of thirty or forty, as if they were the scattered seeds of a raceme of a Palm: they are referred to the genus Nœggerathia, a tree of the carboniferous formation allied to the Palms. [Sidenote: FOSSIL FRUITS.] A figure of a fossil fruit from the Oolite--Carpolithes Bucklandi, is introduced in _Lign. 44, fig. 2_, and will be described hereafter. [Illustration: Lign. 44. Fossil Fruits, or Seed-vessels; _nat._ Fig. 1.--Cardiocarpon acutum. _Snibstone Coal-mine, Leicestershire._ 1_a_.--One of the above magnified.