The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-09-13

moss. Two are worthy of special no.
tice. Both grew to the dignity of trees,
with trunks ranging up to three feet
in diameter, and height varying from
thirty to seventy, or occasionally 100
feet. Both were sparsely branched, and
the branches were stiff and clumsy.
The foliage was similar in both cases,
and consisted of short, pointed, spike
like leaves attached by thiekened bases
bodies were dustfike spores produced
away out alt the eXtremities of the
branches. In one case the leaves We're
thickset upon the surface, their bases
touching all around, the foliage-bear-
ing part of the plant fairly bristling
with green spikes. The leaves were,
however, progressively sned from all
but the upper growing parts, and the
bare stems were sculptured with dia-
nd-shaped leaf scars, in a pattern
resembling the arrangement of scales
on certain ganoid fishes. This was the
lepidodendron, the scale tree. The other
great lycopod had the stem Longitude
nally fluted, with leaf scars arranged
in rows along the ribs Sr in the fur
rows between them. From a fancied
resemblance of these leaf scars to i'm
pressions of the old-fashioned seal in
softened wax this type has been called
dendron and sigillana there were reed
like pteridophytes related to the mod
ern horse tails or securing ruShes. Some
of these, with jointed stems and fine
fittings between the nodes, are known
as calanitieS. Less common in the
swasnpy jungles, but more abundant
apparently, on the dries uplandS, were
numerous cone-bearing trees, some with
broad leaves related to the curious
oriY7 crl-s thn col a,ro Of obi
flora, and others more nearly allied to
the present yews and pines. Ferns,
lepidodendronS, sigillarias, calamites
and old-fashioned coniferS all contrib
uted in greater or less degree to the
formation of coal.
The Coal Of the Carboniferous Accu-
INFLATED In Estuaries or In Sea-
border Marshes.
The unparalleled luxurance of the
carboniferous forests extended to the
more open sylvia of the uplands. as we'll
as to the dense jungles of the salt
marshes and brackish estuaries, but
it was only where conditions favored
the partial or complete submergence
of accommodations of vegetable matter
that coal was formed Plant remains
falling on dry land and exposed to the
atmosphere undergo complete decay
and soon return to earth and air. The
inconceivable volume of vegetable de-
bris which must have been furnished
by the successive generations of forests
sit is possible that plants of differ
emit rank, and hence referable to diff
ferent orders of the vegetable kingdom,
had stems longitudinally fluted and
marked with the seal-lilSe scars which
have been regarded as the distinguish
ing characteristics of sigillaria. AT all
events, different observers have come
to widely different conclusions respect
ing the systematic position of sigillaria,
some referring 1t without question to
the lycopods and others regarding it
as related to cycads-a group of gym
nospermous plants belonging to the
same sub-order as the pines and
spruces. Fragments of stems of sigil-
laria from the coal measures of Guth-
RE county. Ia. unusually well pre-
served and showing the microscopic
details of structure as perfectly as if
sections had been cut from the fresh
stem, have. for some time, been in pos
session of the writer. Microscopic sec
lions from these reveal the scalariform
tissue of pterdophytes and not the
gymnospermous tissue of cycads. Sigil
laria from the coal measures of Iowa
is certainly related to ferns and lepi-
dodendrons more intimately than to
cycads.