[Footnote 26: The solitary lignite of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, seems to have been araucarian. Miller's _Footprints of the Creator_, p. 203.] [Footnote 27: _Footprints of the Creator_, p. 192.] These coniferous trees do not appear to occur among the erect stems of the coal-beds, at least they are very rare in such a position. Their more usual appearance is that of drifted, branchless trunks, imbedded along with other fragmentary plants in deep strata of sandstone. They probably grew on higher ground than the swamps which supported the sigillariæ and their allies, and might have been carried down by streams, freighted out to sea, and so deposited among the sediment that was gathering at the bottom. The remains of cycadaceous plants have been described among the vegetation of the coal-measures; but only fragments have as yet been found. The modern _Cycadeæ_ are low shrubs or trees, with thick stems of nearly uniform breadth, crowned with a dense clump of spreading fronds which resemble both those of the palms and the ferns. They are natives of the warmer regions of both hemispheres. So long ago as the year 1835, Dr. Lindley figured a flower-like plant, to which he gave the name of _Antholites_, ranking it among the _Bromeliaceæ_, or pine-apple group. It was afterwards suspected by Dr. Hooker to belong rather to the coniferæ; and he supposed that the so-called flowerets might be really tufts of young unexpanded leaves. An examination of a more perfect specimen, however, has induced that distinguished botanist to alter his convictions and return to the original decision of Lindley, that the antholites are really flowers.[28] In Fig. 15, therefore, which represents one of these coal-measure fossils, the reader beholds the oldest flower that has yet been found; and surely it is of no little interest to know, that amid the rank, steaming forests of the Carboniferous era, with all their darkness and gloom, there were at least some flowers--flowers, too, that were allied to still living forms, and breathed out a rich aromatic fragrance. [Footnote 28: See Dr. Hooker's remarks in the Supplement to the fifth edition of Lyell's Manual, p. 31.] [Illustration: Fig. 15.--Antholites.]