Elements of geology, or, The Elements of geology, or, The ancient changes of the earth and its inhabitants as illustrated by geological monuments elementsofgeolog00lyel Year: 1868 Ch. XXIV.] EQUISETACEJE—CALAMITES. 4:71 In the carboniferous strata of Coalbrook Dale, and in many other coal-fields, elongated cylindrical bodies, called fossil cones, named Lepidostrobus by M. Adolphe Brongniart are met with. (See fig. 521.) They often form the nucleus of concretionary balls of clay- Fig. 521. a. Lepidog&robvs ornatns, Brong. Shropshire; half natural size. b. Portion of a section, shovring the
Elements of geology, or, The Elements of geology, or, The ancient changes of the earth and its inhabitants as illustrated by geological monuments elementsofgeolog00lyel Year: 1868 Ch. XXIV.] EQUISETACEJE—CALAMITES. 4:71 In the carboniferous strata of Coalbrook Dale, and in many other coal-fields, elongated cylindrical bodies, called fossil cones, named Lepidostrobus by M. Adolphe Brongniart are met with. (See fig. 521.) They often form the nucleus of concretionary balls of clay- Fig. 521. a. Lepidog&robvs ornatns, Brong. Shropshire; half natural size. b. Portion of a section, shovring the large sporangia in their natural position, and each supported by its bract or scale. c. Spores in these sporangia, highly magnified. (Hooker, Mem. Geol. Survey, vol. ii. part 2, p. 440.) ironstone, and are well preserved, exhibiting a conical axis, around which a great quantity of scales were compactly imbricated. The opinion of M. Brongniart is now generally adopted, that the Lepiclo- strobus is the fruit of Lepldodendron ; indeed, it is not uncommon in Coalbrook Dale and elsewhere to find these strobili or fruits termi- nating the tip of a branch of a well-characterized Lepldoclendron, EquisetacecB.—To this family belong two fossil species of the Coal, one called Equi set urn by Brongniart, and found also in Xova Scotia, which has sheaths, regularly toothed, ribbed, and overlapping like those on the young fertile stems of Equisetum flu- viatile. It was much larger than any living ' Horsetail.' The Equi- setum giganteum, discovered by Humboldt and Bonpland in South America, attained a height of about 5 feet, the stem being an inch in diameter; but more recently Gardner has met with one in Brazil 15 feet high, and Meyen gives the height of E. Bogotense in Chili as 15 to 20 feet. Calamiies.—The fossil plants so called were originally classed by most botanists as cryptogamous, being regarded as gigantic Equiseta ; Fig. 522.
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