Fig. 360.
- a. Lycopodium densum; banks of R. Thames, New Zealand.
- b. branch, natural size.
- c. part of same, magnified.
In the carboniferous strata of Coalbrook Dale, and in many other coal-fields, elongated cylindrical bodies, called fossil cones, named by M. Adolphe Brongniart Lepidostrobus, are met with. (See [fig. 361.]) They often form the nucleus of concretionary balls of clay-iron-stone, and are well preserved, exhibiting a conical axis, around which a great quantity of scales were compactly imbricated. The opinion of M. Brongniart is now generally adopted, that the Lepidostrobus is the fruit of Lepidodendron.
Fig. 361.
Lepidostrobus ornatus, Brong.; half nat. size. Shropshire.