Fig. 21.
These plants are generally but a few feet in height, though sometimes two yards broad.
Although of universal occurrence, it is singular that it is unaccompanied by any evidence of branches, leaves, flowers, or fruit. The peculiarly lax condition of this enormous tree fern has prevented the preservation of many of the beautiful markings by which the trunk must have been distinguished.
In our selection from such as have been discovered we have given two striking varieties, the first the Sigillaria elegans ([Fig. 22]), as it is figured by Brongniart, and the Sigillaria Defrancii ([Fig. 23]) from St. Ambroise, both of them distinguished by the beauty of their markings. It will be evident upon examination that these strange vegetable wonders of an early world bear a relation to the recent Coniferæ; but this subject, which is one of anxious dispute among fossil botanists, need not detain us. Amid the many varieties of Sigillariæ and Lepidodendrons which are associated with them numerous exquisitely delicate markings occur. The sections of these plants too present, in their medullary rays and slender vascular tissue, systems of arrangement which are curious and ornamental.
Fig. 22.
Having suggested—and we aim at nothing more—that the fossil flora might furnish many tasteful ornaments to the art-manufacturer, we pass hastily to an equally brief and merely
