Lycopsida and Pteropsida of Prof. Jeffrey, though the suggested relation to the higher plants would not be accepted by any modern botanist. In spite of Williamson's tactical error in weighting himself with a doubtful scheme of classification, and in spite also of a faulty terminology, it is easy to see now that he had the best of the controversy, for he knew the facts about the structure of the Carboniferous Cryptogams, which his opponents, at that time, did not. They stuck to generalities, and those who take the trouble to rake the ashes of this dead controversy will at least learn that dogmatism is not confined to theology!
An interesting point is that Williamson at that time spoke of Brongniart almost as an ally[1]. The conviction that the old Lepidodendrons and Calamites were "exogenous" then seemed to him of greater importance even than his belief that they were Cryptogams. The English opposition, however, was never really formidable, and so a change of front became necessary, to meet the attacks of the powerful French school. Williamson was an energetic disputant; not content with his numerous English publications, he published, in 1882, an article in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, entitled "Les Sigillaires et les Lepidodendrées." This was translated into French for him by his colleague Marcus Hartog, whose assistance he greatly valued. He describes this vigorous polemical treatise as "flung like a bombshell among my opponents."
In time they came over, one by one, to his views, and even the most redoubtable of the French champions Bernard, Renault, before the close of his life, had made very considerable concessions to Williamson's side of the question. There is no need to dwell on the controversy; every student now knows that the Club-mosses, the Horse-tails and the Sphenophylls of Palaeozoic times formed abundant secondary tissues homologous with those of a Gymnosperm or a Dicotyledon; the case of the Sphenophylls shows that the character was not limited to arborescent plants then any more than it is among Dicotyledons at the present day. At the same time, as Williamson maintained, these groups of plants were, broadly speaking, cryptogamic.
- ↑ Loc. cit. p. 409
