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Updated: May 2, 2025
Count Sternberg remarked that we are unacquainted with any existing species of plant, which like the Lepidodendron, preserves at all ages, and throughout the whole extent of the trunk, the scars formed by the attachment of the petioles, or leaf-stalks, or the markings of the leaves themselves.
But, in their essential structure, they very closely resemble the earliest Lepidodendroid trees of the coal: their stems and leaves are similar; so are their cones; and no less like are the sporangia and spores; while even in their size, the spores of the Lepidodendron and those of the existing Lycopodium, or club-moss, very closely approach one another.
In the sea-cliff about five miles north of Corrie, near the village of Laggan, strata of volcanic ash occur, forming a solid rock cemented by carbonate of lime and enveloping trunks of trees, determined by Mr. Binney to belong to the genera Sigillaria and Lepidodendron.
The opinion of M. Brongniart that the Lepidostrobus is the fruit of Lepidodendron has been confirmed, for these strobili or fruits have been found terminating the tip of a branch of a well-characterised Lepidodendron in Coalbrook Dale and elsewhere. Calamites Sucowii, Brong.; natural size. Radical termination of a Calamite.
The branches and stem of this plant are not yet certainly known, but there is no sort of doubt that it was closely allied to the Lepidodendron, the remains of which abound in the coal formation.
It is only now commencing to be fully recognised that this is really a most dangerous explosive. As we have seen, large quantities of coal are formed almost exclusively of lepidodendron spores, and such coal is productive of a great quantity of dust.
Even in the lower Permian the Lepidodendron and Sigillaria were very rare, and before the end of the epoch they and the Calamites also had become extinct.
From such data we may presume that the atmosphere of the Carboniferous period corresponded in density with that now investing the globe, and that different currents of air varied then as now in temperature, so as to give rise, by their mixture, to the condensation of aqueous vapour. Cone and branch of Lepidodendron corrugatum.
Gryllacris lithanthraca, Goldenberg. Professor Goldenberg published, in 1854, descriptions of no less than twelve species of insects from the nodular clay-ironstone of Saarbruck, near Treves. Professor Goldenberg showed me, in 1864, the wing of a white ant, found low down in the productive coal-measures of Saarbruck, in the interior of a flattened Lepidodendron.
Two families of lycopods deserve special mention, the Lepidodendrons and the Sigillaria. The LEPIDODENDRON, or "scale tree," was a gigantic club moss fifty and seventy-five feet high, spreading toward the top into stout branches, at whose ends were borne cone-shaped spore cases.
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