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15.—Calathopteris heterophylla gen. et sp. nov., a Lower Carboniferous Pteridosperm bearing Two Kinds of Petioles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2012

Albert G. Long
Affiliation:
Hancock Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Synopsis

Calathopteris heterophylla gen. et sp. nov. is described from a single petrified stem found in a loose block at Oxroad Bay, East Lothian. It is approximately 17 cm long and 2 cm diameter, being clothed with the swollen bases of incomplete petioles, many reflexed, and arranged in a dense 2/5 phyllotactic spiral. In most petioles the vascular bundle becomes U-shaped in transverse section with six abaxial mesarch lobes. Other leaf-traces divide in the inner cortex to form three concentric xylem strands which differentiate as they pass outward to form a median triarch bundle flanked by two tetrarch bundles. The stem possesses a medullated stele in which short wide tracheids occur in the medulla. Similarities between the petioles and those of Calathospermum fimbriatum Barnard are pointed out while those with three bundles were probably trichotomous (and ?microsporangiate) like Diplopteridium teilianum Walton.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1976

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References

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