Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
Our knowledge of the structure of the cuticle of Coal-measure plants is very meagre in comparison with the amount of information recently published as to the cuticular characters of Mesozoic genera. So far as I know, no detailed descriptions have been published of the cuticles of British Palæozoic plants. Professor Zeiller1 has described a few cuticles of French Carboniferous plants, and Dr. Huth2 recently gave an account of the cuticle of Mariopteris muricata, but very little has so far been attempted in this branch of research. The present preliminary account deals with material obtained by Mr. L. J. Wills from the Middle Coal-measures of the Denbighshire Coal-field near Chirk and from the Old Hill Marls (Etruria Marls ?) in the Upper Coal-measures of South Staffordshire. The cuticles are preserved as brown films in clayey shales, approaching fireclays in composition, none having yet been found in carbonaceous or sandy shales. It is hoped that this note will incite collectors to search for further specimens in this state of preservation.
page 385 note 1 R. Zeiller, Houille et Perm d'Autun et d'Epinac, p. 115.
page 385 note 2 Huth, W.Palœobot. Zeitsch., Bd. i, pp. 7—14, 1912.Google Scholar
page 385 note 3 For details of this method see Nathorst, A.GPalœobot. Zeitsch., Bd. i, p. 26, 1912, and H. H. Thomas and N. Bancroft, Trans. Linn. Soc., vol. viii, pt. v, p. 157.Google Scholar
page 386 note 1 Haberlaudt, G.Physiologische Pflanzenanatomie, 1909, p. 449.Google Scholar
page 389 note 1 R. Zeiller, op. cit.
page 389 note 2 W. Huth, op. cit.
page 389 note 3 Warming, E., Ecology of Plants, English trans., 1909, p. 101.Google Scholar
page 390 note 4 G. Haberlaudt, op. cit., pp. 445, 451.
page 390 note 1 H. H. Thomas and N. Bancroft, op. cit., pp. 155–204.