(c) Calamodendron has the woody wedges of barred tissue as in a, with medullary rays, but has the intervening medullary wedges of an elongated tissue approaching to woody fibre, and also with medullary rays.
To these I would add a fourth type, which I have described, from the coal-formation of Nova Scotia.[DB]
[DB] “Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,” 1871.
(d) Eucalamodendron differs from Calamodendron in having true bordered pores or pseudo-scalariform slit-pored tissue, and corresponds to the highest type of calamitean stem.
I would also add that under a and b there are some species in which the woody cylinder is very thin in comparison to the size of the stem. In c and d the woody cylinder is thick and massive, and the stems are often large and nodose.
As an example of an ordinary Calamite in which the external surface and foliage are preserved, I may quote the following from my report on the “Flora of the Lower Carboniferous and Millstone Grit,” 1873:
Calamites Undulatus, Brongniart.—This species is stated by Brongniart to be distinguished from the C. Suckovii, the characteristic Calamite of the middle coal-formation, by its undulated ribs marked with peculiar cellular reticulation. He suggests that it may be merely a variety of C. Suckovii, an opinion in which Schimper coincides; but since I have received large additional collections from Mr. Elder, containing not only the stems and branches, but also the leaves and rhizomes, I am constrained to regard it as a distinct though closely allied species.
The rhizomata are slender, being from one to two inches in diameter, and perfectly flattened. They are beautifully covered with a cellular reticulation on the thin bark, and show occasional round areoles marking the points of exit of the rootlets. I have long been familiar with irregular flattened stems thus reticulate, but have only recently been able to connect them with this species of Calamite.
The main stems present a very thin carbonaceous bark reticulated like the rhizomes. They have flat, broad ribs separated by deep and narrow furrows, and undulated in a remarkable manner even when the stems are flattened. This undulation is, however, perhaps an indication of vertical pressure while the plant was living, as it seems to have had an unusually thin and feeble cortical layer, and the undulations are apparently best developed in the lower part of the stem. At the nodes the ribs are often narrowed and gathered together, especially in the vicinity of the rounded radiating marks which appear to indicate the points of insertion of the branches. At the top of each rib we have the usual rounded areole, probably marking the insertion of a primary branchlet.
The branches have slender ribs and distant nodes, from which spring secondary branchlet s in whorls, these bearing in turn small whorls of acicular leaflets much curved upward, and which are apparently round in cross section and delicately striate. They are much shorter than the leaves of Calamites Suckovii, and are less dense and less curved than those of C. nodosus, which I believe to be the two most closely allied species.