Fossil plants, Vol. 2

Among the best known plants in the Palaeozoic floras are the genera Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, types which are often spoken of as Giant Club-Mosses or as ancestors of existing species of Lycopodium and Selaginella. Of these genera, but more particularly of Lepidodendron, we possess abundant records in a condition which have made it possible to obtain fairly complete information not only in regard to habit and external features but as to the anatomical characters of both vegetative and reproductive shoots. The structure of Lepidodendron differs too widely from that of recent Club-Mosses (species of Lycopodium) to justify the statement that this prominent member of the Palaeozoic vegetation may be regarded as a direct ancestor of any living plant. There is at least no doubt that Lepidodendron and Sigillaria must be included in the Pteridophyta. The description by Dr Scott[236] of the genus Lepidocarpon, founded on petrified specimens of strobili, demonstrated the existence of a type of lycopodiaceous plant in the Carboniferous period distinguished from all living representatives of the group by the possession of integumented megaspores, which may fairly be styled seeds. Lepidocarpon and another seed-bearing plant Miadesmia are described under a separate heading as lycopodiaceous types characterised by an important morphological feature, which among recent plants constitutes a differentiating character between the Pteridophytes and the Phanerogams.

Lepidodendron.

i. General.

The genus Lepidodendron included species comparable in size with existing forest trees. A tapered trunk rose vertically to a height of 100 feet or upwards from a dichotomously branched subterranean axis of which the spreading branches, clothed with numerous rootlets, grew in a horizontal direction probably in a swampy soil or possibly under water. A description by Mr Rodway[237] of Lycopods on the border of a savannah in Guiana forming a miniature forest of Pine-like Lycopodiums might, with the omission of the qualifying adjective, be applied with equal force to a grove of Lepidodendra. The equal dichotomy of many of the branches gave to the tree a habit in striking contrast to that of our modern forest trees, but, on the other hand, in close agreement with that of such recent species of Lycopodium as L. cernuum (fig. 123), L. obscurum (fig. 124) and other types. Linear or oval cones terminated some of the more slender branches (fig. 188) agreeing in size and form with the cones of the Spruce Fir and other conifers or with the male flowers of species of Araucaria, e.g. A. imbricata. Needle-like leaves, varying considerably in length in different species, covered the surface of young shoots in crowded spirals and their decurrent bases or leaf-cushions formed an encasing cylinder continuous with the outer cortex. The fact that leaves are usually found attached only to branches of comparatively small diameter would seem to show that Lepidodendron, though an evergreen, did not retain its foliage even for so long a period as do some recent conifers.

By the activity of a zone of growing tissue encircling the cylinder of wood the main trunk and branches grew in thickness year by year: the general uniformity in size of the secondary conducting elements affords no indication of changing seasons. As the branches grew stouter and shed their leaves the surface of the bark resembled in some degree that of a Spruce Fir and other species of Picea, in which the leaf-scars form the upper limit of prominent peg-like projections, which, at first contiguous and regular in contour, afterwards become less regular and separated by grooves (fig. 140) and at a later stage lose their outline as the bark is stretched to the tearing point (fig. 140, C). The leafless branches of Lepidodendron were covered with spirally disposed oval cushions less peg-like and larger than the decurrent leaf-bases of Picea, which show in the upper third of their length a clean-cut triangular area and swell out below into two prominent cheeks separated by a median groove and tapering with decreasing thickness to a pointed base, which in some forms (e.g. Lepidodendron Veltheimianum, fig. 185, C, D), is prolonged as a curved ridge to the summit of a lower leaf-cushion.

A portion of the cushion below the triangular leaf-scar often shows transverse gaping cracks or depressions (fig. 185, C) such as occur on a smaller scale on the older cushions of a Fir twig (fig. 140). Secondary thickening, as in recent trees, is not confined to the vascular cylinder but at an early stage, frequently before there are any signs of secondary wood, the outer region of the broad cortex becomes the seat of active cell-formation which results in the addition of a considerable thickness to the bark. At a later stage of increase in girth, the leaf-cushions are stretched apart and the original surface-features become obliterated by vertical cracks and by the exfoliation of the superficial tissues[238].

Some species of Lepidodendron produced branches characterised by spiral or vertical series of scars; these in older shoots were replaced by depressions having a diameter of several inches and comparable in appearance, as also perhaps in manner of formation, with the scars left on the stem of a Kauri Pine (Agathis australis)[239] on the abscission of lateral branches by a natural process. These shoots, known as Ulodendron, are described in a subsequent section. (page 128.)

A fully-grown Lepidodendron must have been an impressive tree, probably of sombre colour, relieved by the encircling felt of green needles on the young pendulous twigs. The leaves of some species were similar to those of a fir while in others they resembled the filiform needles of the Himalayan Pine (Pinus longifolia). The occasional presence of delicate hyphae in the tissues of Lepidodendron demonstrates susceptibility to fungal pests.

Architecturally, if one may use the term, Lepidodendron owed its power of resistance to the bending force of the wind to its stout outer bark formed of thick-walled elements produced by the activity of a cylinder of cortical meristem (figs. 148, 172, etc.). The vascular axis, of insignificant diameter in proportion to the size of the stem (figs. 152, 153, 172, 181, A), must have played a subordinate part, from a mechanical point of view, as compared with the solid mass of wood of a Pine or an Oak.

Within the compass of a text-book it is impossible, even if it were desirable, to include an account of the majority of the species of the widely distributed Palaeozoic genus Lepidodendron. In spite of the great number of known species of this common member of Carboniferous floras, our knowledge of the type as a whole is deficient in many points, and such information as we possess needs systematising and extending by comparative treatment based on a re-examination of available data.

In order to appreciate the meaning of certain external features characteristic of Lepidodendron stems it is essential to have some knowledge of the internal structure.

A dual system of terminology has been unavoidably adopted for species of Lepidodendron: the majority of specific names have been assigned to fossils known only in the form of casts or impressions, while petrified fragments, which unfortunately seldom show the surface-features, have received another set of names. A glance at the older palaeobotanical literature reveals the existence of several generic designations, which fuller information has shown to have been applied to lepidodendroid shoots deprived of some of their superficial tissues before fossilisation and differing considerably in appearance from the more complete branches of the same species[240]. It has in some instances been possible to correlate the two sets of specimens, casts or impressions, showing external features, and petrified fragments. We may reasonably expect that future discoveries will enable us to piece together as definite specific types specimens at present labelled with different names.

A well-preserved leaf-cushion of a Lepidodendron—the most obvious distinguishing feature of the genus—is rhomboidal or fusiform and vertically elongated (fig. 146, C, E; fig. 185, C, D): in exceptional cases it may reach a length of 8 cm. and a breadth of 2 cm. The cushion as a whole represents a prominent portion of the stem or branch comparable with the elevation on the twig of a Spruce Fir and the leaf-base of a Lycopodium (cf. fig. 121, A, lower portion) which appears in a transverse section of a branch as a rounded prominence (cf. Lycopodium, fig. 125, A and H). Disregarding differences in detail, a typical Lepidodendron leaf-cushion is characterised by a clearly defined smooth area often situated in the middle region (fig. 146, C, s). This is the leaf-scar or place of attachment of the base of the leaf which was cut off by an absciss-layer while the branch was comparatively young, as in recent forest trees and in some species of Ferns. On the leaf-scar are three smaller scars or cicatricules, the central one is circular or more or less triangular in outline, the two lateral scars being usually oval or circular. The central pit marks the position of the single vascular bundle which constituted the conducting tissue connecting the leaf with the main vascular system of the stem. The two lateral scars (figs. 145, A, p; 146, C, s; 147, p) represent the exposed ends of two strands of tissue, the forked branches of a strand which pass from the middle cortex of the stem into the leaf; this is known as the parichnos, a name proposed by Professor Bertrand in 1891[241].

The specimen shown in fig. 141 shows the linear leaves attached to their respective cushions.

The lamina has a well-defined median keel on the lower surface and on either side a groove in which sections of petrified leaves have demonstrated the occurrence of stomata (cf. fig. 142).

ii. Leaves and Leaf-cushions.

All Lepidodendron leaves, so far as we know, possessed a single median vein only. In some species, as for example in Lepidodendron longifolium Brongn., they have the form of long and slender acicular needles very similar to those of Pinus longifolium; in L. Sternbergii (fig. 141) they are much broader and shorter. In external form as in internal structure it is often impossible to distinguish between the leaves of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria. The distinguishing features enumerated by the late M. Renault cannot be employed, with any great degree of confidence, as diagnostic characters. In transverse section the lamina of a Lepidodendron leaf presents the same appearance as that of the Sigillarian leaves represented in fig. 142. Near the base the free part of the leaf is usually sub-rhomboidal in section with short lateral wings, a ventral keel and two stomatal grooves (fig. 142, A, B, g). The form and arrangement of stomata are shown in fig. 143, A, which was drawn from a piece of a leaf shown in surface-view in a section lent to me by Professor Weiss. It should, however, be pointed out that the leaf cannot be certainly identified with Lepidodendron rather than with Sigillaria, but as the leaves of these two genera are constructed on the same plan the identification is of secondary importance.

The single xylem bundle consists of primary tracheae only, at least in such laminae as have been identified as Lepidodendroid. Surrounding the xylem strand occur delicate parenchymatous cells in some cases accompanied by darker and thicker-walled elements. As in Sigillaria, the leaves of which are more fully described on page 210, a fairly broad sheath of wider and shorter scalariform or spiral transfusion tracheids surrounds the conducting strand (figs. 142, t; 143, B, C, t). As Renault shows in the case of Lepidodendron esnostense[242], the small leaves of which are 1·5–2 mm. broad at the base and several centimetres long, the stomatal grooves and keel die out towards the apex when the lamina assumes a more nearly circular form (fig. 143, C).

The area of the cushion excluding the leaf-scar is spoken of by some writers as the field. Below the leaf-scar the kite-shaped cushion tapers to a gradually narrowing basal position: in Lepidodendron Veltheimianum, a species characteristic of Lower Carboniferous strata, it is seen to be continuous, as a ridge with sloping sides, with a lower cushion (fig. 185).

Below a leaf-scar the cushion frequently shows a pair of oval areas on which a fine pitting may be detected in well-preserved impressions, these oval scars, as seen in fig. 185, D, are practically continuous at the upper end with the parichnos scars on the leaf-scar area; this is explained by the fact that these infra-foliar scars also owe their existence to patches of lacunar, aerenchymatous tissue in close connexion with the parichnos[243].

Shortly before entering the base of the leaf-lamina the parichnos divides into two arms which diverge in the outer cortical region right and left of the vascular bundle, and passing obliquely upwards they come close to the surface of the leaf-cushion just below the leaf-scar. The diagram—fig. 144, B—shows a leaf-trace, lt, in the leaf-cushion, as seen in a diagrammatic drawing of a vertical radial section of a stem, the dotted lines, p, p′, show the two parichnos arms which are represented as impinging on the surface of the leaf-cushion at p′, and then bending upwards to pass into the leaf-base right and left of the vascular bundle or leaf-trace. For convenience the arms of the parichnos are represented in one plane though actually in different vertical planes.

Fig. 144, A, shows the difference between a view of the original surface of a Lepidodendron, as at a, where a leaf-cushion with a leaf-scar is seen, and a view of an impression representing the outer cortex, b, a short distance below the surface. The surface b, in fig. 144, A, corresponds to the face d-e in the diagrammatic longitudinal section fig. 144, B: the outline of each cushion is clearly visible and in the centre is seen the leaf-trace, lt, with its parichnos.

The surface-features, a (fig. 144, A), have been impressed on the rock, c, (fig. 144, B) in which the specimen was entombed and by the removal of the cast of the stem, that is the thickness b to e in fig. 144, B, the form of the leaf-cushion is revealed. The presence of the two infra-foliar parichnos scars at p′ (fig. 144, A) is explained by the diagram, fig. 144, B, p′.

The relation of the parichnos to the oval scars below a Lepidodendron leaf-cushion has been worked out in detail by Weiss who shows that, at least in some species, the two arms do not bend downwards as shown in the diagram, fig. 144, B, but pursue a straight gradually ascending course as seen in fig. 145, A. Just below the leaf-scar region of the cushion each arm comes into association with a group of lacunar, aerenchymatous tissue, such as occurs in the roots of certain Mangrove plants, and it is this aerenchyma which is exposed on the two oval depressions below the leaf-scar. The structure of this aerenchyma is shown in fig. 145, B; it consists in this species (L. Hickii Wats.) of stellate cells which would constitute an efficient aerating system. Probably, as Weiss suggests, these patches of aerenchyma were originally covered by an epidermis provided with stomata, and it is owing to the destruction of this superficial layer that the two oval scars often form a prominent feature on Lepidodendron leaf-bases[244]. The diagram reproduced in fig. 144, B, may be taken as practically correct, as the patches of aerenchyma described by Weiss do not differ essentially from the parichnos tissue.

The parichnos scars are shown on the leaf-scar and cushion in fig. 146, C. In the lower leaf-cushion shown in fig. 146, E, the infra-foliar parichnos scars, p, are clearly seen, but the preservation of the leaf-scar is not sufficiently good to show them on that part of the fossil. In the upper cushion (fig. 146, E) the position of the parichnos arms is shown on the leaf-scar, but the infra-foliar parichnos scars are hidden by two small spiral shells. The genus Spirorbis, to which these shells are referred, appears to have persisted from the Silurian epoch to the present day. The comparatively frequent occurrence of Spirorbis shells on the leaves and other parts of Palaeozoic plants, has recently been dealt with in a paper by Barrois[245] who discusses in detail the habitats of these small animals from the point of view of the conditions under which the plants were preserved. In a note by Malaquin appended to Barrois’ paper the belief is expressed that Spirorbis lived on pieces of Palaeozoic plants which lay under water.

The fact that with one exception all the Spirorbis shells on the specimen of Lepidodendron, of which two leaf-cushions are shown in fig. 146, E, occur on the large parichnos scars on the cheeks of the cushions, suggests the possibility that the escape of gases from the parichnos tissue may have rendered the position attractive to the Spirorbis. It can hardly be accidental that the shells occur on the parichnos strands. This fact recalls the view held by Binney[246] and accepted with favour by Darwin[247] that Lepidodendron and other coal-forest trees may have lived with the lower parts of the stems in sea water.

Above the leaf-scar is a fairly deep triangular or crescentic pit (fig. 146, C, l) known as the ligular pit from the occurrence on younger shoots of a delicate organ like the ligule of Isoetes (fig. 132) embedded in a depression in the upper part of the leaf-cushion. The ligule was first figured in Lepidodendron by Solms-Laubach[248] and described in English material by Williamson under the name of the adenoid organ[249].

In some Lepidodendron stems a second triangular depression may occur above the ligular pit, the meaning of which is not clear: this has been called the triangulum by Potonié[250]. Stur[251] suggested that it may represent the position occupied by a sporangium in Lepidodendron cones.

It is important to remember that as a branch increases in girth the leaf-cushions are capable of only a certain amount of growth: when the limit is reached they are stretched farther apart and thus the narrow groove which separates them is converted in older stems into a comparatively broad and flat channel, thus altering the surface characters.

Another feature worthy of notice in reference to the leaf-cushions of Lepidodendron is the occurrence in rare instances of alternate zones of larger and smaller cushions. This variation in the size of the leaf-cushions is by no means uncommon in the closely allied genus Sigillaria; in Lepidodendron it has been described by Potonié[252] in L. volkmannianum and more recently by Mr Leslie and myself[253] in a South African species L. vereenigense.

Owing to the natural exfoliation of the superficial layers of the outer bark at a certain stage in the growth of the plant, or in some instances no doubt as the result of post-mortem decay, which destroys the delicate cells of the meristematic zone in the outer cortex, isolated leaf-cushions and strips of the external surface are occasionally met with as carbonised impressions.

The appearance presented by a Lepidodendron stem which has been deprived of its superficial tissues may be dealt with more intelligibly after we have become familiar with the anatomical characters.

iii. Lepidophloios.

Before proceeding further with the genus Lepidodendron a short account may be intercalated of the external features of a lepidodendroid type of stem which it is customary to describe under a distinct generic title Lepidophloios. This name is convenient for diagnostic purposes though it seems clear that apart from the form of the leaf-cushion (fig. 146, A) we are at present unable to recognise any well-defined differences between the two forms Lepidodendron and Lepidophloios. For general purposes the name Lepidodendron will be used as including plants possessing leaf-cushions of the type already described as well as those with the Lepidophloios form of cushion.

The generic name Lepidophloios was first used by Sternberg[254] for a Carboniferous species which he had previously described as Lepidodendron laricinum. In 1845 Corda[255] instituted the name Lomatophloios for specimens possessing the same external characters as those for which Sternberg had chosen the name Lepidophloios. The leaf-cushions of Lepidophloios differ from those of the true Lepidodendron in their relatively greater lateral extension (cf. fig. 146, A and C), in their imbricate arrangement and in bearing the leaf, or leaf-scar, at the summit. In some species referred to Lepidophloios the cushions are however vertically elongated and in this respect similar to those of Lepidodendron: an example of this type is afforded by Lepidophloios Dessorti a French species described by Zeiller[256]. In younger branches the cushions may be directed upwards having the leaf-scar at the top; but in the majority of specimens the cushions are deflexed as in figs. 146, D; 160, A. The shoot of Lycopodium dichotomum shown in fig. 121, B, with the leaves in the reversed position bears a close resemblance to a branch of Lepidophloios.

The photograph of Lepidophloios scoticus Kidst.[257] reproduced in fig. 160, A, illustrates the dichotomous branching of the stem and the form of the cushions with the leaf-scars pointing downwards. In the fertile branch of the same species shown in fig. 160, B, the leaf-scars face upwards.

In most species the cushions are simply convex without a median keel, but in some cases a median ridge divides the cushion into two cheeks as in the genus Lepidodendron. The leaf-scar bears three small scars, the larger median scar marking the position of the leaf-trace, while the lateral scars are formed by the two arms of the parichnos: in some examples of deflexed cushions, though not in all, a ligular pit occurs on the cushion a short distance above the leaf-scar.

The drawing reproduced in fig. 146, A, showing the leaf-scar on the upper edge of the cushion should have been reversed with the leaf-scars pointing downwards. This figure represents part of the surface of a specimen consisting of the outer cortex of a stem with leaf-cushions 3 cm. broad. The thickness of this specimen is 4 cm.: a section through the line ab is represented in fig. 146, D (reproduced in the correct position, with the leaf-scars, sc, pointing downwards): internal to the cushions is a band of secondary cortex (the shaded strip on the outer edge of the section) which was formed on the outside of the phellogen. The phellogen is a cylinder of actively dividing cells in the outer part of the cortex of the stem, often spoken of as the cork-cambium or cortical meristem, which produces a considerable amount of secondary cortical tissue on its inner face and a much smaller amount towards the stem surface. This delicate cylinder frequently forms a natural line of separation between the outer shell of bark and the rest of the stem. In the specimen before us, the thin-walled cells of the phellogen were ruptured before petrification and the outer shell of bark was thus separated as a hollow cylinder from the rest of the stem: this cylinder was then flattened, the two inner surfaces coming into contact. Fig. 146, D, represents a section of one half of the thickness of the flattened shell.

This separation of the outer cortex, and its preservation apart from the rest of the stem, is of frequent occurrence in fossil lycopodiaceous stems. The flattened outer cortical shell of a Lepidophloios, specifically identical with that shown in fig. 146, A and D, was erroneously described by Dr C. E. Weiss in 1881 as a large lepidodendroid cone[258].

Fig. 146, B, affords a view of the inner face of the specimen of which the outer surface is seen in fig. 146, A: the surface shown in the lower part of the drawing, on which the boundaries of the cushions are represented by a reticulum, corresponds to the inner edge of the strip of secondary cortical tissue represented by the vertically shaded band in fig. 146, D.

The shaded surface in fig. 146, B, represents a slightly deeper level in the stem which corresponds to the outer edge of the vertically shaded band of fig. 146, D: the narrow tapered ridges (fig. 146, B) represent the leaf-traces passing through the secondary cortex, and the fine vertical shading indicates the elongated elements of which this strip of secondary cortex is composed.

In the longitudinal section diagrammatically reproduced in fig. 146, D, cut along the line ab of fig. 146, A, the parenchymatous tissue of the stout cushions has been partially destroyed, as at a; at s is seen the section of a Stigmarian rootlet which has found its way into the interior of a cushion. Each leaf-trace is accompanied by a parichnos strand as in the true Lepidodendron; at the base of the leaf-cushion the parichnos branches into two arms which diverge slightly right and left of the leaf-trace, finally entering the base of the leaf lamina as two lateral strands (fig. 147, p). At one point in fig. 146, D the section has shaved a leaf-trace represented by a black patch resting on the parichnos just above the line ef, but it passes through one of the parichnos arms p′ which debouches on to the leaf-scar sc at p. Had the section been cut along the line cd of fig. 146, A the leaf-trace would have been seen in a position similar to that occupied by the parichnos p′ in fig. 146, D.

Fig. 147, A, affords a good example of a tangential section through a Lepidophloios leaf-cushion, 1 cm. broad, like that represented in fig. 146, A, showing the vascular bundle lt, the two parichnos strands, p, composed of large thin-walled cells (cf. Isoetes, fig. 133, H, I), and the ligular pit near the upper edge of the section enclosing the shrunken remains of the ligule (fig. 147, B, l).

Fig. 147, B, shows the form of the tangentially elongated leaf-cushions of Lepidophloios and their spiral disposition.

Fig. 146, F, represents a section similar to that shown in figs. 147, A and B, but in this case the leaf-trace, lt, and the parichnos strands, p, lie in a cavity formed by the destruction of some of the leaf-cushion tissue. It is worthy of notice that the parichnos cells have resisted decay more successfully than the adjacent tissue of the cushion.

The diagrammatic sketches reproduced in fig. 146, H and I, were made from a transverse section similar to one originally figured by Williamson[259]: fig. 146, H, corresponding in position to the line gh in fig. 146, A, passes through the ligular pit, l, and cuts across the parichnos in the act of branching; the leaf-trace passes outwards beyond the Y-shaped parichnos strand. In the other section, fig. 146, I, the parichnos is shown in a horizontal plane and the leaf-trace, lt, appears in oblique transverse section. In both sections and in fig. 146, G the shaded band at the base represents the secondary cortical tissue external to the phellogen.

The transverse section represented in fig. 146, G, shows in the left-hand cushion, a, the exit of the two parichnos arms and the leaf-trace between them: it illustrates also the various forms assumed by lepidodendroid leaf-cushions when cut across at different levels.

iv. The Anatomy of Lepidodendron vasculare Binney[260].
Figs. 148–155, 168, A.

In the earlier literature dealing with the anatomy of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria the presence or absence of secondary vascular tissue was made the criterion of generic distinction and the distinguishing feature between the classes Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms, Lepidodendron being relegated to the former class because it was supposed to have no power of forming secondary wood, while Sigillaria, characterised by a considerable development of such tissue, was classed by Brongniart and afterwards by Renault as a Gymnosperm. Binney[261] in 1865 recognised that the two types of stem pass into one another, but it was Williamson[262] who provided complete demonstration of the fallacy of the Brongniartian view.

These two undoubted Pteridophytes agree very closely in anatomical structure and both are now recognised as arborescent genera of Lycopodiaceous plants. In a paper published by Lomax and Weiss in 1905[263] a specimen is described from the Coal-Measures of Huddersfield, in which a decorticated stem with the anatomical characters of Binney’s Sigillaria vascularis gives off a branch having the anatomical structure which it has been customary to associate with the species Lepidodendron selaginoides, so-called by Sternberg and founded by him on impressions showing well-preserved external characters.

In 1862 Binney[264] described petrified specimens of vegetative shoots from the Lower Coal-Measures of Lancashire under the names Sigillaria vascularis and Lepidodendron vasculare. These were afterwards recognised as different states of the same species. A few years after the publication of Binney’s paper Carruthers[265] identified Binney’s species Lepidodendron vasculare with Sternberg’s L. selaginoides. The evidence on which this identification rests has not been stated, but many writers have retained this specific designation for the well-defined type of anatomical structure first described by Binney as L. vasculare. The use of the specific name selaginoides is, however, open to objection. The species Lepidodendron selaginoides, as pointed out by Kidston[266], is probably identical with the plant which Brongniart had named L. Sternbergii before the institution of Sternberg’s species, and we are not in possession of convincing evidence as to the connection of L. Sternbergii (= L. selaginoides) with specimens possessing the anatomy of Binney’s type. Binney’s designation is therefore retained for the anatomical type described in the following pages[267].

The most detailed account hitherto published of the anatomy of Lepidodendron vasculare is that by the late M. Hovelacque[268], based on material from the Lower Coal-Measures of England.