The Canadian Record of Science Volume 5

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: belongs, and there is no present evidence to show that they did, but I think the unique character of this plant will justify us in regarding it as of a new genus, for which I would suggest the name Zosterophyllum, to be specifically known as myretonianum. It must be clearly understood, however, that the application of this generic name is not intended to denote affinity with Zostera, but merely a general resemblance. Closely associated with Zosterophyllum, I found a branch bearing rounded and ovoid sporangia like bodies (Plate I, fig. 1) which are given in the figure of natural size. It will be seen that there are two conspicuous lateral processes or branches, the uppermost of which bears a distinctly globular body or sporangium (?). Above the second sporangium there is a short fragment of stem which probably represents continuation of the same axis. The sporangia show no subtending bracts, nor is any structure visible. They are in each case completely flattened out so that only the impression remains. A second fruiting branch of the same nature, but with less mature fruit, is shown in the drawing of natural size (Plate II, fig. 2). This is much more intimately associated with Zosterophyllum than the preceding, being completely surrounded by leaves and branches from which it was at first difficult to separate it. Both agree in their essential features, but as in neither no actual connection was found to exist with Zosterophyllum, it is impossible to say what the precise relationship is, though from their general form and structure we might infer that these fruiting spikes were thrown up directly from the horizontal rhizome. It is highly probable that the round, seed-like bodies (Plate II, fig. 3), which also occur abundantly, and which I was unable in my former paper,1 t...