PLATE IX.
Fossil Stems and Seed-vessels.
Fig. 1. The strobilus or cone of an extinct family of plants whose remains are very abundant in the coal strata, and which have largely contributed to the formation of the mineral fuel now become so indispensable to the necessities and luxuries of man. There are several kinds, and although there can be no doubt that they are the seed-vessels of the Lepidodendra with which they are associated, yet but few species are identified with their parent trees. The specimen figured is the Lepidostrobus ornatus of Lindley and Hutton. From the coal measures of Coalbrook Dale.
Fig. 2. One of the so-called "Petrified Melons" of Mount Carmel.
Figs. 3 & 4. An unknown fossil body; possibly a coral.
Fig. 5. A vertical section of one of the "Petrified Melons" from Mount Carmel. The fossil thus named by Mr. Parkinson appears to be merely a siliceous nodule, having a cavity lined with quartz crystals. There is, however, a legend rife among the barefooted friars of Mount Carmel, that has conferred a celebrity on these stones; it runs, that "on this spot was a garden well stocked with melons, and that the prophet Elias, who founded the monastery, once asking the gardener for one of his melons, he with churlish humour answered, they were not melons but stones: on which they were immediately changed into stones, and so remain to this day."
Figs. 6 & 7. Unknown vegetable fossils, highly metallic; fig. 6 appears to be a fragment of a cone.
Figs. 8 & 9, are nodules of pyrites, accidentally assuming the form of fungi; they are not fossils, but simply masses of inorganic mineral matter.
Fig. 10. Portion of the flattened stem of an extinct plant, from the coal measures of Yorkshire, whose affinities are uncertain; supposed to resemble the Yew-tree. It appears to be similar to the fossil named Knorria taxina by Messrs. Lindley and Hutton in the British Fossil Flora. In that beautiful work,—the continuation of which is much to be desired,—the genus Knorria comprises those fossil stems in which the projecting scars of the petioles are densely arranged in a spiral manner.[15]