t to this connection, for while their
nearest alliance appears to be with the Sphenophylls, they approach the
Lycopods in anatomy, habit, and mode of branching.

The typically microphyllous character of the Lycopods, and the simple
relation between sporangium and sporophyll which obtains throughout the
class, have led various botanists to regard them as the most primitive
phylum of the Vascular Cryptogams. There is nothing in the fossil record
to disprove this view, but neither is there anything to support it, for
this class so far as we know is no more ancient than the megaphyllous
Cryptogams, and its earliest representatives show no special simplicity.
If the indications of affinity with Sphenophylls are of any value
the Lycopods are open to suspicion of reduction from a megaphyllous
ancestry, but there is no direct palaeontological evidence for such a
history.

The general conclusions to which we are led by a consideration of the
fossil record of the Vascular Cryptogams are still very hypothetical,
but may be provisionally stated as follows:

The Ferns go back to the earliest known period. In Mesozoic times
practically all the existing families had appeared; in the Palaeozoic
the class was less extensive than formerly believed, a majority of the
supposed Ferns of that age having proved to be seed-bearing plants. The
oldest authentic representatives of the Ferns were megaphyllous plants,
broadly speaking, of the same type as those of later epochs, though
differing much in detail. As far back as the record extends they show no
sign of becoming merged with other phyla in any synthetic group.

The Equisetales likewise have a long history, and manifestly attained
their greatest development in Palaeozoic times. Their oldest forms show
an approach to the extinct class Sphenophyllales, which connects them
to some extent, by anatomical characters, with the Lycopods. At the
same time the oldest Equisetales show a somewhat megaphyllous character,
which was more marked in the Devonian Pseudoborniales. Some remote
affinity with the Ferns (which has also been upheld on other grounds)
may thus be indicated. It is possible that in the Sphenophyllales we
may have the much-modified representatives of a very ancient synthetic
group.

The Lycopods likewise attained their maximum in the Palaeozoic, and
show, on the whole, a greater elaboration of structure in their early
forms than at any later period, while at the same time maintai