He gave the name of _Flemingites gracilis_ to the plant
of which the cones form a part. The branches and stem of this plant
are not yet certainly known, but there is no sort of doubt that it was
closely allied to the _Lepidodendron_, the remains of which abound in
the coal formation. The _Lepidodendra_ were shrubs and trees which put
one more in mind of an _Araucaria_ than of any other familiar plant;
and the ends of the fruiting branches were terminated by cones, or
catkins, somewhat like the bodies so named in a fir, or a willow.
These conical fruits, however, did not produce seeds; but the leaves
of which they were composed bore upon their surfaces sacs full of
spores or sporangia, such as those one sees on the under surface of a
bracken leaf. Now, it is these sporangia of the Lepidodendroid plant
_Flemingites_ which were identified by Mr. Carruthers with the free
sporangia described by Professor Morris, which are the same as the
large sacs of which I have spoken. And, more than this, there is
no doubt that the small sacs are the spores, which were originally
contained in the sporangia.
The living club-mosses are, for the most part, insignificant and
creeping herbs, which, superficially, very closely resemble true
mosses, and none of them reach more than two or three feet in height.
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