Calamites

“ One of the earliest notices of Calamites in the present century is by Steinhauer [585] , who published a memoir in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society in 1818 on Fossil reliquia of unknown vegetables in the Carboniferous rocks. He gives some good figures of Calamitean casts under the generic name of Phytolithus, one of those general terms often used by the older writers on fossils. Among English authors, Martin [586] may be mentioned as figuring casts of Calamites, which he describes as probably grass stems. ”

“ Besides the above plants of the Coal formation which are connected with existing Families or Genera, there occur many others which can be referred to no known type in the vegetable kingdom. We have seen that the Calamites take their place in the existing family of Equisetaceæ; that many fossil Ferns are referable to living genera of this extensive family; and that Lepidodendra approximate to living Lycopodiaceæ and Coniferæ. ”

“ Arborescent plants reaching a height of several meters, and having a diameter of proportional size. In habit of growth the Calamites bore a close resemblance to Equisetum; an underground rhizome giving off lateral branches and erect aerial shoots bearing branches, either in whorls from regularly recurring branch-bearing nodes, or two or three from each node ”

“ In Archaeocalamites, which certainly deserves generic rank, the branches may occur on every node, but only in certain parts of the stem; the ribs of successive internodes do not alternate, but are continuous, indicating that the leaves were superposed. Using Calamites as a generic name for all those Calamarian stems in which the ribs alternate at the nodes, we have, on Weiss's system, the following sub-genera: Stylocalamites, branches rare and irregularly arranged ”

“ A, Asterophyllites trinerne. A1, Leaf enlarged, B, Annularia sphenophylloides. B1, Leaf enlarged, C, Sphenophyllum erosum. C1, Leaflet enlarged. C2, Scalariform vessel of Sphenophyllum. D, Pinnularia ramosissima, probably a root.
No one has done more than my friend Dr. Williamson, of Manchester, to illustrate the structure of Calamites, and he has shown that these plants, like other cryptogams of the Carboniferous, had mostly stems with regular fibrous wedges, like those of exogens. ”

“ The exceptionally favourable conditions under which specimens of calamitean plants have been preserved, have enabled us to become almost as familiar with the minute structure of their stems and roots, as well as with their spore-producing organs, as with those of a living species. In short, it is thoroughly established that Calamites agrees in most essential respects with our well known Equisetum, and must be included in the same order, or at least sub-class, as the recent genus of Equisetaceae. ”

“ The attempts to associate certain forms of foliage with Arthropitys on the one hand and with Calamodendron on the other, cannot be said to be entirely satisfactory; we still lack data for a trustworthy diagnosis of distinct Calamarian genera which shall include external characters as well as histological features. If we restricted the genus Calamites to stems with an Arthropitys structure and an Asterophyllitean foliage, we should be driven into unavoidable error. ”

“ The specimen of which fig. 100 is a photograph was originally described and figured by Mr Kidston [799] from the lower Coal-Measures of Ayrshire. Both Calamites (Calamitina) Göpperti (Ett.) and C. (Calamitina) approximatus (Brongn.) are recorded from the Transition, Middle and Lower Coal-Measures [800] .
B. Stylocalamites.
In the members of this sub-genus the branch-scars are either irregular in their occurrence or absent. ”

“ Binny of Manchester, it seems not unlikely that what we call calamites may be really the inner core of a plant not yet named, just as a set of fossils were long called sternbergiæ, before they were discovered to be really the pith of coniferous trees. With regard to the branches of the calamites, Brongniart's conjecture may be true, that they exist among the group of plants called asterophyllites. It is not unlikely that many dissimilar plants have been grouped together as calamites, and, on the other hand, that plants allied to the typical species have been thrown into separate genera. ”

“ From the Upper Devonian to the Permian epoch Calamites and other closely related types played a prominent part in the vegetation of the world. We have no good evidence for the existence of Calamites in Triassic times; in its place there were257 gigantic Equisetums which resembled modern Horse-tails in a remarkable degree. In the succeeding Jurassic period tree-like Equisetums were still in existence, and species of Equisetites are met with in rocks of this age in nearly all parts of the world. ”

“ In Calamites, Calamodendron, and Asterophyllites the scars of the branchlets or leaves are circular or oval, with only a single vascular « 158 » scar, and situated in verticils at the top of well-marked nodes of the stem.
In tree-ferns the leaf-bases are large and usually without a distinct articulating surface. The vascular bundles are numerous. Protopteris has rounded leaf-scars with a large horseshoe-shaped bundle of vessels above and small bundles below. Caulopteris has large elliptic or oval leaf-scars with vascular scars disposed concentrically. ”

“ Williamson has shown that the stem of Calamites consists of a central pith or cavity of large size surrounded by a cylinder consisting of alternate wedges of woody and cellular matter, with vertical canals at the inner sides of the wedges, and slender medullary rays. The thick cellular wedges intervening between the woody wedges he calls primary medullary rays; the smaller medullary rays in the wedges, secondary medullary rays. There is thus a highly complex exogenous stem based on the same principle with the stem of a common Equisetum, but with much greater strength and complexity. ”

“ The fossils known as Calamites (fig. 109) are very common Page 166 in the Carboniferous deposits, and have given occasion to an abundance of research and speculation. They present themselves as prostrate and flattened striated stems, or as similar uncompressed stems growing in an erect position, and sometimes attaining a length of twenty feet or more. Externally, the stems are longitudinally ribbed, with transverse joints at regular intervals, these joints giving origin to a whorl or branchlets, which mayor may not give origin to similar whorls of smaller branchlets still. ”

“ The stem of the largest living species rarely exceeds half-an-inch in diameter, whilst that of the calamite attained a thickness of five inches. But the great point which is noticeable in the fossil calamites and equisetites is that they grew to a far greater height than any similar plant now living, sometimes being as much as eight feet high. In the nature of their stems, too, they exhibited a more highly organised arrangement than their living representatives, having, according to Dr Williamson, a "fistular pith, an exogenous woody stem, and a thick smooth bark." ”

“ As our material increases it will be possible to further simplify the nomenclature for Calamarian plants, but it is unwise to allow our desire for a simpler terminology to lead us into proposals which are based rather on suppositions than on established fact. If it were possible to discriminate between pith-casts of stems having the different anatomical characters designated by the three sub-genera, Arthropitys, Arthrodendron and Calamodendron, the genus Calamites might be used in a much narrower and probably more natural sense than that which we have adopted. ”

“ The branches of calamites bear whorls of linear narrow leaves, which have been described as asterophyllites. Their fruits, Wolkmannia, are cones bearing seeds like those of species of equisetum, merely differing by the presence of scales and imbricated in rows. Two other genera, represented by branches bearing leaves also in whorls, appear referable to the same family of calamites, or perhaps to one intermediate between calamites and lepidodendron. ”

“ With the remarkable trees above referred to, there coëxisted a vast multitude of ferns, some arborescent, others herbaceous, tall, reed-like plants, the Calamites, allied to modern Mare's-tails, a very remarkable family of plants allied to modern Cycads and Pines; the Cordaites, which seem to have grown plentifully in certain parts of the coal areas—probably the drier parts, so that their remains sometimes constitute the greater part of small seams of coal. ”

“ Older roots [697] are usually found in a decorticated condition. A transverse section of root in which secondary thickening has been active for some time presents on a superficial view a close resemblance to a stem of Calamites, but a careful comparison at once reveals important points of difference. The specimen 347diagrammatically sketched in fig. 92 illustrates very clearly the348 origin of a root from the node of a Calamite stem. The section has passed through a stem in a tangential direction, showing the characteristic arrangement of the vascular bundles x, and principal medullary rays m. ”

“ The Calamites of the coal-measures bore indeed a very striking resemblance, and were closely related, to our modern horse-tails, as the equiseta are popularly called; but in some respects they differed considerably.
Most people are acquainted with the horse-tail (equisetum fluviatile) of our marshes and ditches. It is a somewhat graceful plant, and stands erect with a jointed stem. The foliage is arranged in whorls around the joints, and, unlike its fossil representatives, its joints are protected by striated sheaths. ”

“ The structure of the stem is, indeed, so complex, and differs so much in different stages of growth, and different states of preservation, that we are in danger of falling into the greatest confusion in classifying these plants. Sometimes what we call a Calamite is a mere cast of its pith showing longitudinal striæ and constrictions at the nodes. Sometimes we have the form of the outer surface of the woody cylinder, showing longitudinal ribs, nodes, and marks of the emission of the branchlets. ”

“ Calamine, kal′a-mīn, n. an ore consisting essentially of carbonate of zinc. [Fr.—Low L. calamina, most prob. from L. cadmia.]
Calamint, kal′a-mint, n. a genus of Labiate plants closely allied to balm and thyme. [Fr.—Low L. calamentum, through L. from Gr. kalaminthē.]
Calamite, kal′a-mīt, n. a fossil plant abundant in the coal-measures, believed to be a kind of gigantic horse-tails (Equisetaceæ) . [Formed from L. calamus, a reed.] ”

“ The Calamite is another plant in which the Coal abounds. Its true botanical character is not yet clearly ascertained; but it bears a general resemblance, except for its gigantic 192 dimensions, to the common Horse-tail of our swamps and marshy grounds. It is a reed-like, jointed stem, sometimes thirty feet in length, hollow within, and curiously jointed without. ”

“ Many examples of such casts have been figured by Lindley and Hutton [686] , Binney [687] , Grand’Eury [688] , Weiss [689] , Stur, and other writers [690] . The large stem-cast of fig. 90 illustrates the manner of occurrence of long branched roots on the nodes of a Calamite growing in sandy or clay soil. The lower and more darkly 344shaded portion of the specimen is covered by a layer of coal representing the carbonised wood and cortex, which has been moulded on to the sandstone pith-cast. In fig. ”

“ In this species of Calamite the joints are short, and decrease in length towards the summit, where they terminate in an enlarged rounded head. The striæ are ornamented with tubercles at the bottom, close to the articulation. The striæ are broader, and the tubercles larger, towards the summit.
The stem is sometimes found two feet long, and from two to four inches in diameter. ”

“ They take a flower, burn it, and collect all the ashes of it, from which they extract the salts by calcination. They put these salts into a glass phial, wherein having mixed certain compositions capable of setting them in motion when heated, all this matter forms a dust of a bluish hue; of this dust, excited by a gentle warmth, arises a stem, leaves, and a flower; in a word, they perceive the apparition of a plant springing from its ashes. ”

“ The process of chalking, which has been carried out on a large scale in some parts of England, and which consists in bringing up the chalk from pits, penetrating through the overlying tenacious clay, and mixing it with the soil, operates, to some extent, in a similar manner, though no doubt the lime also exercises a strictly chemical action. It is probable that the mixing of soils might be advantageously extended, and it merits more minute study than it has yet obtained. ”

“ Clay is a term used to describe a mass of fine particles, the most prominent property of which is plasticity when wet. Clays range from masses of pure kaolin to masses of kaolin and related minerals mixed with as much as 60% of impurities, which may be sand, lime, iron oxides, etc. The particles of a fine clay range around 1/1000 of a millimeter in diameter, while the impurities may be, and usually are, of larger size, up to the size of sand grains. ”

“ The flower of both plants has 4 petal-like calyx-parts, of oblong shape with rounded tips; the color is greenish white; the stamens and pistils are pale green. The flowers grow on short light green stems, in branching clusters from the angles of the leaves and the end of the vine.
The Clematis climbs by means of its leaf-stems, which grow in strong deep curves; it sometimes hooks them over a support, and again clasps them more securely by twisting the stem once or twice around. ”