Antediluvian phytology, illustrated by a collection of the fossil remains of plants, peculiar to the coal formations of Great Britain / By Edmund Tyrell Artis.

  • Artis, Edmund Tyrell, 1789-1847.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Antediluvian phytology, illustrated by a collection of the fossil remains of plants, peculiar to the coal formations of Great Britain / By Edmund Tyrell Artis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Professor promised at the conclusion of his paper to continue the sub- ject, by considering the plants which occur in the brown coal formation, which he considers as of much later origin than those mentioned in his present essay, in which he has confined himself to the plants found in the black coal formation. M. Adolphe Brongniart, the son of the very eminent mineralogist, who is at the head of the French Royal Manufactory of Porcelain at Sevres, has given tlie following classification of fossil plants, in his Essay Sur la Classification et la Distribution de Vegetaux Fossiles,” inserted in the “Memoires du Museum D’Histoire Naturelle,” and also printed separately in quarto, Paris, 182Z: Class 1. Stems whose internal organization is recognizable. ]. Exogenites. Wood formed of regular concentric layers. 2. Endogenites. Wood composed of insulated bundles of vessels which are more numerous towards the circumference than at the centre. Class 2. Stems whose internal organization is no longer distinct, but which are characterized by their external form. 3. CuLMiTEs. Stem jointed, smooth; a single impression at each articulation 4. Calamites. Stem jointed, regularly striated ; impressions rounded, small, numerous, forming a ring round each articulation, or sometimes wanting.'’ 5. Syringodendron. Stem channelled, not jointed; impressions dot-like or linear, arranged in quincunx.® 6. SiGiLLARiA. Stem channelled, not jointed; impressions in the form of disks arranged in quincunx. 7. CLA.THRARIA. Stem neither channelled, nor jointed; impressions in the form of rounded disks, disposed in quincunx.'^ ^ These stems appear to M. Brongniart to belong to the arborescent grasses, to calamus or its allied genera. ” M. de Candolle suggested to M. Brongniart that these stems appear to belong to some plants of the natural order of eqiiisetacem. ' M. Brongniart considers these remains to belong to genera which are entirely extinct. M. Brongniart shews in his paper the great agreement between these two genera, and the stems of ferns in every respect, excepting magnitude, and considers them as evidently owing their origin to plants of that natural order rather than to the palms.