Advances in Paleozoic Botany

Advances in Paleozoic Botany

BOOK REVIEWS PALEOZOIC BOTANY M. Streel, P.M. Bonamo and M. FaironDemaret (Editors), 1972. Advances in Paleozoic Botany. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 223 pp...

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BOOK REVIEWS PALEOZOIC

BOTANY

M. Streel, P.M. Bonamo and M. FaironDemaret (Editors), 1972. Advances in Paleozoic Botany. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 223 pp., Dfl.50.00. This volume, which is dedicated to Professor Suzanne Leclercq on the occasion of her retirement as head of the paleobotanical laboratory of the University of Li(~ge, contains 17 original papers by 24 authors. A portrait is followed by a resum~ by H.P. Banks of her scientific career, and by a bibliography of 64 titles. An important contribution is by Banks, P.M. Bonamo and J. D. Grierson on a new el igulate homosporous lycopod, Leclercqia complexa, from the uppermost Middle Devonian of New Y o r k State. The plant is virtually complete with foliage, anatomical structure, sporangia, and spores preserved. It is the most completely known Devonian lycopod. The enigmatic Protosalvinia is treated in some detail by T.L. Phillips, K.J. Niklas and H.N. Andrews, who conclude that the three North American species, Protosalvinia arnoldii, P. ravenna and Po furcata are growth forms of one species. Affinities seem to be with the Fucales. Other papers treating Devonian plants are by W.G. Chaloner on Dawsonites and Svalbardia from Fair Isle north of Scotland, D. Edwards on a Zosterophyllum fructification from the Old Red Sandstone, and F.M. Hueber on Rebuchia (erstwhile Bucheria) from Wyoming. He places the genus in the Zosterophyllophytina. B. Lundblad has restudied Halle's Psilophyton (?) hedei and concludes that it is an invertebrate related to the graptolites. Three separate papers by K.C. Allen, K.M. Lele and M. Streel deal with Devonian spores. R.W. Baxter sees a possible homology between the fertile and sterile segments of Peltastrobus and the whorled leaves and branches of Sphenophyllum plurifoliatum. J. Galtier and L. Grambast have reexamined Renault's material of Zygopteris lacattei, but failed to find any direct connection between the often figured fertile organs and the petioles. Identity of the fructifications with Biscalitheca musata is strongly suggested. M.

279 Chaphekar and K.L. Alvin have found fructifications of the Musatea type on pinnae of Metaclepsydropsis duplex. They propose the name Musatea duplex (Williamson) for the whole plant. J.M. Pettitt and W.S. Lacey describe a new Lower Carboniferous seed compression as Menaisperma green/yii, which seems to be intermediate between the older lagenostomalean type of seed and the later trigonocarpalean-cardiocarpalean type. An account of Bisca/irheca suzzaneana, a new species, by S.H. Mamay shows that the stratigraphic range of Biscalitheca is through most of the Upper Pennsylvanian. N.S. Snigirevskya briefly summarizes the coal ball floras of the Donetz Basin and describes a new species, Cardiocarpus leclercqiae. D.A. Eggert shows that the stigmarian axes of Sigillaria are different from Stigmaria ficoides, the form commonly attributed to the lepidodendrids. S.V. Meyen has shown that among the Angaraland lepidophytes, Angarodendron, Tomiodendron, and Eskdalia possess ligules and parichnos, so the long-held idea that all the lepidophytes of this flora are eligulate must be modified. He describes Angarophloios leclercqianus, a new genus and species. C.A. Arnold, Ann Arbor, Mich.

UPPER MANTLE A.R. Ritsema (Editor), 1972. The Upper Mantle. Developments in Geotectonics, 4. Upper Mantle Scientific Report, 41. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 634 pp., Dfl. 57.50. This handsome volume of 634 pages contains 31 of the invited papers presented at the final Upper Mantle Project Review Symposium, held in Moscow at the time of the XV General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, August 1971. The book begins with a statement on the Significance and Achievements of the UMP, written by the Bureau of the International Upper Mantle Committee. This statement identifies three philosophical developments identified with the Project: increased international cooperation and mutual understand-