The Anatomy of Palaeostachya vera

Abstract

With Plates TTYYTT and XYYTTT, and four Figures in the Text M ORE than thirty-seven years ago Williamson described before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 1 ' A New Form of Calamitean Strobilus', from a fragmentary calcified specimen which Mr. Butterworth had found in a nodule from the Upper Foot Coal at Roe Buck, in Strinesdale, Saddleworth. The title of that paper is interesting. It was a ' new' Calamitean cone, because another had already been described by Carruthers and Binney, and the latter cone {Calamostachys) was admitted by Williamson to be Calamitean. Indeed, he states (p. 261) regarding the two cones that ' the differences which they present' are ' but generic, not ordinal ones', and, further on, he argues that his new cone must be Calamitean 'since no one appears to doubt that such is the character of Mr. Binney's strobilus'. Early in 1887 more specimens of the new cone were found among nodules from the Oldham district, and were described by Williamson in the same year before the Royal Society 2 as 'The True Fructification of Calamites.' As is well known, the title of this second paper was meant to emphasize Williamson's later conviction, that Calamostachys could not be a Calamitean cone. With the true ardour of a man who is sure of his new belief, he tells us ' Mr. Carruthers believed he had found it [the fruit of Catamites'] in Calamostachys Binneyana, and Mr. Binney arrived at a similar conclusion. I have always rejected these conclusions because of the conspicuous differences between the morphology of the Calamitean twig and that of the axis of Calamostachys! As a memorial of this new belief, Seward, 3 when he referred the 'True Fructification ' to Weiss's genus Palaeostachya, chose ' vera' as the specific designation.

Palaeostachya Andrewsii, a New Species of Calamitean Cone from the American Carboniferous

“…The sterile bracts. -Palaeostaehya andreiosii possesses 24 sterile bracts at each node, in contrast to the English specimens where whorls of 16, 18, and 20 were noted by Williamson (1888) and Hickling (1907). The bracts are not coherent but are completely free from one another down to their attachment to the cone axis from which they extend outwards at a 90 0 angle for a distance of 6 mm.…”

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WHILE PALAEOSTACHYA is one of the most interesting fossil cones assigned to the Calamitales and was considered by certain of the early workers to be the only true fructification of the group, the major portion of our anatomical knowledge of the genus is based on less than one-half dozen specimens from the Lancashire coal-measures. These were originally described by Williamson (1871Williamson ( , 1888 and the most recent and complete account (of the same specimens) is that of Hickling (1907). Thus almost 70 years have elapsed since the discovery of the fossil material on which most of our current knowledge is founded.The discovery of the present specimen was made in the summer of 1953 and by a curious coincidence (considering the long prior unproductive period) was contemporaneous with discoveries of several other specimens by other American workers'', In general the present specimen confirms the observations of Hickling on cone morphology and vascular anatomy of the sporangiophores although it differs from the English specimens in several characters of specific importance and illustrates a number of hitherto-undescribed anatomical details.The specimen has been named Palaeostochya andrewsii in honor of Professor

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“…WHILE PALAEOSTACHYA is one of the most interesting fossil cones assigned to the Calamitales and was considered by certain of the early workers to be the only true fructification of the group, the major portion of our anatomical knowledge of the genus is based on less than one-half dozen specimens from the Lancashire coal-measures. These were originally described by Williamson (1871Williamson ( , 1888 and the most recent and complete account (of the same specimens) is that of Hickling (1907). Thus almost 70 years have elapsed since the discovery of the fossil material on which most of our current knowledge is founded.…”

“…12). Both Williamson (1888) and Hickling (1907) noted the pairing of these carinal canals and the associated primary bundles in their specimens. Hickling stated that "This pairing of the bundles is the most.…”

“…stachya from the other Calamitean cones. Hickling's (1907) disclosure that the vascular trace in Palaeo. stachya followed a course up into the internode before descending to enter the axillary sporangiophore seems to show a condition derived from that found in Calamostachys.…”