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There were but few trees. Herbaceous plants alone existed. There were tall grasses, ferns, lycopods, besides sigillaria, asterophyllites, now scarce plants, but then the species might be counted by thousands. The coal measures owe their origin to this period of profuse vegetation. The yet elastic and yielding crust of the earth obeyed the fluid forces beneath.
Again, with the exception perhaps of some Pinnularioe, and Asterophyllites, there is a remarkable absence from the coal measures of any form of properly aquatic vegetation. The occurrence of marine, or brackish-water animals, in the roofs of coal- beds, or even in the coal itself, affords no evidence of subaqueous accumulation, since the same thing occurs in the case of modern submarine forests.
Having used the word "exogenous," it might be as well to pay a little attention, in passing, to the nomenclature and broad classification of the various kinds of plants. We shall then doubtless find it far easier thoroughly to understand the position in the scale of organisation to which the coal plants are referable. Asterophyllites foliosa.
Further, the Sigillariae grew on the same soils which supported Conifers, Lepidodendra, Cordaites, and Ferns plants which could not have grown in water. Again, with the exception perhaps of some Pinnulariae and Asterophyllites, there is a remarkable absence from the coal measures of any form of properly aquatic vegetation.
The foliage consisted of whorls of long narrow leaves, which differed only from the fern asterophyllites in the fact that they were single-nerved. Sir William Dawson assigns the calamites to four sub-types: calamite proper, calamopitus, calamodendron, and eucalamodendron. Root of Catamites Suckowii. Calamocladus grandis.
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