The fossil flora of Great Britain; or, Figures and descriptions of the vegetable remains found in a fossil state in this country

LIBRARY OF
WELLESLEY COLLEGE

FROM THE FUND OF
EBEN NORTON HORSFORD

XII E ^ \ O V Cj

FOSSIL FLORA

OF

GREAT BRITAIN;

OR,

FIGURES AND DESCRIPTIONS

OF THE

VEGETABLE REMAINS FOUND IN A FOSSIL STATE

IN THIS COUNTRY.
BY

JOHN LINDLEY, Ph.D. F.R.S. &c.

mOFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON;
AND

WILLIAM HUTTON, F.G.S. &c.

Avant de donner un libre cours a notre imagination, il est essentiel de
rassembler un plus grand nombre de faits incontestables, dont les consequences
puissent ee deduire d'elles-memes." — Sternberg.

VOLUME II.

LONDON :

JAMES RIDGWAY AND SONS, PICCADILLY.

1833—5.

5a<

QE
m

z

Naynes of Subscribers to the " Fossil Flora,^* received since the
List published with the First Volume.

BABINGTON, , Esq.

BRACKENRIDGE, GEORGE W., Esq., F.S.A.,P.G.S., Broom-
well House, Brislington, Bristol.

CONWAY, C. Esq., Pontycrum Works, near Newport.

COXWELL, G. S , Esq., Newcastle.

CUNINGHAME, Miss D'ARCY, of Lainshaw.

DICKSON, ROBERT, M.D., F.L.S., Licentiate of the College
of Physicians.

DUNN, THOMAS, Esq., Newcastle.

EDGAR, THOMAS, Esq., 25, Dorset-place, Dorset-square.
EYTON, THOMAS, Esq., Eyton, Shropshire.
HAILSTONE, SAMUEL, Esq., F.L.S., Croft House, Bradford,
Yorkshire.

HOBART, MISS, Lumley Park, Durham.
HURT, CHARLES, Jun., Esq., Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
IMAGE, Rev. T. Whipstead.
JOHNSTON, Dr. GEORGE, Berwick-on-Tweed.
KENT, WILLIAM, Esq., Bathwick Hill, Bath.
LAWSON, W., Esq., Brough Hall, Yorkshire.
LANGDON, AUGUSTUS, Esq., M.R.I., F.A.S., and Z.S.
LOONEY, FRANCIS, Esq., Oak-street, Manchester.
PRESTWICH, JOSEPH, Jun., Esq., F.G.S., Lawn, South
Lambeth.

SAGE, Captain W., 48th Regiment, N. I. Bengal.

SAULL, W. DEVONSHIRE, Esq.,F.G.S., 15, Aldersgate-street.

SIMPSON, Rev. J. P., M.A., Wakefield.

SWANWICK, Dr. Macclesfield.

TEALE, HENRY, Esq., Stornton Lodge, Leeds.

TYRCONNEL, the Earl of, Kiplin, near Catterick.

WALKER, Rev. , Ushaw College, Durham.

WETHERELL, N. T., Esq., F.G.S. M.R.C.S., <Src., Highgate,
Middlesex.

PREFACE

TO

VOLUME II.

It was a part of the plan laid down when we
commenced this work, to take the opportunity
afforded by the appearance of each succeeding
volume, to state such general opinions as we might
be led to entertain on the subjects embraced ;
accordingly, it is our intention at the present time
to detail some views we have been induced to take
of the circumstances under which the vegetable
fossils of the Carboniferous formation have been
deposited and mineralized, together with a gene-
ral sketch of the rocks comprised in the term
** Coal Measures in the structure and com-
position of which, vegetable remains- form so im-
portant a part, as to give an economical value to
them, far surpassing any other. In doing this,
we beg it may be held in view by our readers,
that our references will be made exclusively to

VOL. II. b

vi

the great Coal field of the North of England.
We have several reasons for limiting ourselves,
in the present article^ to this district ; the first is,
it has been far more extensively worked, and its
productions are, consequently, better known than
any other. It has, also, furnished us with a very
large portion of the materials we have hitherto
made use of ; and the residence of one of the
Authors in the midst of it, has necessarily brought
the circumstances attending it more particularly
under our notice. There is a convenience, also,
in thus limiting our references, as our observations
cannot occupy a large space ; besides which, we
are convinced, that, in every essential circum-
stance, the history of one series of Coal measures
is the history of every other of the same age.

It was our wish to have appended to this a
Catalogue of all the vegetable fossils hitherto dis-
covered in it ; but, in attempting to form one,
we have immersed ourselves in a labyrinth of
difficulties, one half of its fossils having never
been described ; and, although we could easily
ally a portion of these to known genera, yet the
greater number of them would remain absolute
riddles — waiting for some fortunate discovery by
which they are to be connected with fossils already
known, or proved to belong to others yet to be
discovered.

The beds usually denominated the Coal mea-
sures, being the higher part of the Carboniferous

vii

formation, occupy a large portion of the Counties
of Northumberland and Durham^ reposing upon,
and being conformable to, the inferior members
of the series. They consist of irregularly alter-
nating beds of sandstone, shale, or argillaceous
schist, and coal, whose aggregate thickness may
be estimated at 300 fathoms. This may not be
correct, but is, probably, near enough the truth
for our purpose.

With the exception of the coal itself, and a few-
layers and nodules of clay-iron-stone, embedded
in some of the shales, the whole of these beds are
of mechanical origin, the shale being evidently
laminated clay, or mud, consolidated by pres-
sure ; and the sandstones abraded Quartz, Fel-
spar, and Mica, agglutinated by an argillaceous
or calcareous cement. From whence the im-
mense mass of travelled matter, of which these
sandstone and shale beds are composed, may
have come, it is somewhat difficult to conjecture.
The sandstones of the series below the Coal mea-
sures, denominated millstone grit, contain inter-
spersed masses of water-worn quartz, of consider-
able size ; and rarely amongst those of the Coal-
formation, a bed will be found, partaking of the
same characters; but the mass consists of minute
siliceous grains, which are not rounded, or but
partly so ; from which it is fair to infer, that, what-
ever were its origin, the sand of which they are
composed was not brought from any great dis-

b 2

Vlll

tance, or formed like the sands of our sea shore,
by the slow action of attrition upon rocks pre-
viously consolidated, but that it had, probably,
been produced by the ruin of crystalline rocks,
so slightly coherent, as to have been unable to
withstand the violent action of water, to which
they had been exposed. The sandstones are all,
more or less, micaceous, some of them containing
that mineral in large quantity ; where this is the
case, and the plates are of considerable size, the
stone is finely schistose. This is another proof
that the materials forming the sandstone, had
undergone little mechanical action previous to
deposition, or the fragile mica would have dis-
appeared.

In the series of beds, the coal itself forms, in
bulk, a very inconsiderable portion of the whole.
Forty seams are enumerated, but the greater part
of them are too thin to be worked to profit.

The district has long been famous for producing
coal of the finest quality, which has been exten-
sively worked, and, up to the present period, the
largest mining speculations in the kingdom, and,
probably, in the world, are carried on within it.
This being the case, it has become a matter
of great economical importance, to define, as
nearly as possible, each separate bed in the
series, and this has been done with great minute-
ness. It is the universal belief of those best prac-
tically acquainted with the subject, that even the

ix

thinner beds of coal, when not cut off by the rise
of the strata to the surface, or by some fault, are
spread out over the whole area of the formation.
Whether this be the case or not with all the
seams, we shall not stop to enquire ; but the two
beds known as the High and Low Main Seams,
from their not only being the thickest, but as
affording, in their whole mass, coal of fine quality,
have been worked for centuries, and are known
over a space, in the first instance, of more than
80, and in the second, of 200 miles square.

In studying the Carboniferous formation gene-
rally, with reference to the circumstances under
which its different members have been deposited,
nothing is more singular than the sudden change in
the nature of the beds composing it, and the clearly
defined line by which these beds are separated
from each other ; this is most particularly striking
in the lower portion, where a thick stratum of
Carbonate of Lime will be seen to terminate
abruptly, and be immediately succeeded by a
bed of entirely mechanical origin, and of a com-
position so opposite, as to contain scarcely any
calcareous matter whatever. Nor is the difference
of the nature of the two beds more striking, than
the difference of their imbedded organic remains ;
whilst those of the limestone are almost exclu-
sively of marine animals, the sandstones very
rarely contain fossils at all ; and these, when pre-

b 3

X

sent, are, in a majority of cases, terrestrial vege-
tables.

The Carboniferous formation presents, from the
lowest to the highest member, a series of the same
vegetable forms. In the sandstone beds, imme-
diately succeeding the old red Conglomerate,
which occurs at the base of the formation, along
the line of the great Cross fell fault, Sigillaria,
Lepidodendron, Calamites, and Stigmaria, begin
to make their appearance ; as we ascend, the vege-
table remains increase, whilst those of marine
animals, which existed in the limestone and shale
in profusion, decrease, until we arrive at the
Coal formation proper, where marine remains
disappear, giving place to those of vegetables
alone.

In this part of the series, we have the remains
of plants in every bed ; the sandstones contain
them, but, from the roughness of their mecha-
nical composition, it is the larger and stronger
stems only which have left their forms impressed
upon rocks of this class. Coal itself very rarely
retains any outward marks of its vegetable origin,
but the shale bed, immediately over the coal,
(when that substance forms the covering, as it
usually does,) furnishes us with fossils in the
greatest abundance. These are exposed by the
operations of the miner, who, in removing the
coal, often brings to light vegetable forms of sin-

gular beauty and variety, which are almost inva-
riably found parallel to the laniinse of the stone,
and pressed flat, their outward form being re-
tained on the shale as it was taken by the soft
mud which sealed them up, their substance being
converted into coal. Very large stems are often
found standing across the strata, and penetrating
through several different beds.

The vegetable origin of coal is now universally
conceded ; and it is almost as universally believed,
that the plants, of the remains of which it is com-
posed, were swept by torrents from some neigh-
bouring high and dry land, into lakes and estuaries,
where, becoming saturated with moisture^ and
loaded with sand and mud, they sank to the bot-
tom, and there reposed upon previously deposited
beds of sand and mud; another vegetable mass
being in turn washed off, and buried by succes-
sive deposits of these substances, to be followed,
in due time, by another, and another.

Associated with the seams of coal, and in the
beds immediately surrounding them, stems of Si-
gillaria, of a large size, are frequently found
standing erect, with their roots proceeding from
them on all sides, (see vol. 1. plate 54.) We are
aware that the evidence of plants in this position
having grown on the spots where we now find
their remains, is not complete if taken alone^ as
it has been argued they have been floated from a
distance, and left standing in an upright position

b 4

Xll

by the force of gravity, as is known occasionally
to be the case during floods, where trees are re-
moved along with the soil in which they grew ;
and this seems to have been certainly the case
with the upright stems in the sandstone of the
French mine of St. Etienne, where the different
levels of their roots prove, as M. Constant Prevost
has already remarked {Diet, des Sc. art. Terrain,)
that they could not have grown where they now
stand ; but in the Lias Cliffs near Whitby, where
the fragile stems of Equisetum columnare occur
perpendicularly, they cannot have been so placed
by force of gravity ; and if evidence the most con-
clusive be required of the fact of vegetables having
sometimes been overwhelmed on the spots where
they grew during the deposition of the strata, it is
furnished by the Fossil Forest of what is called the
" Dirt bed," immediately over the fine building
stone of the Island of Portland ; and sub-marine
forests of the present day supply us with the same
fact, connected with a different order of things.

The fossils of the Coal measures occur often in
groups ; thus in the roof of the coal in Felling
Colliery, the remains of Pecopteris heterophylla,
(see vol. I. plate 38,) were, a few years ago,
most abundant ; they occurred alone, almost un-
mixed with any other, over a considerable space,
but, beyond that, have been rarely found, so that
they are now comparatively scarce. Could such
grouping have taken place if the individuals had
been swept from a distance ?

XIU

In plate 31, vol. 1, we figured a nearly perfect
specimen of Stigmaria Ficoides, which was found,
with two others, almost as perfect, in the shale
forming the covering of the coal, in the Bensham
seam, Jarrow Colliery, at the depth of about 200
fathoms from the surface; since that period, 14
others have occurred, all in the same bed, and
within a space of about 600 yards square.*

Two of the specimens above alluded to, have
been recently removed from the mine; one is the im-
pression of the under side of the plant, shewing the
central concavity, and 15 arms proceeding from it,
four of which are distinctly branched ; they are
all truncated, the longest being four feet and a
half.

The other specimen, of which the following is
a sketch —

is of much smaller dimensions ; and, in this case,
fortunately, the fossil has detached itself from the

* That a proper idea may be formed of the abundance in
which the remains of Stigmaria occur in this bed, it should be
stated, that those alluded to above, have all been brought to

xiv

roof, thus affording an opportunity of examining
the upper surface of the central portion, which
none of the before cited instances did. This ex-
hibits the same wrinkled appearance, with indis-
tinct circular spots, as the under side described
vol. 1, page 104; it has nine arms, five of which
sub-divide into two branches, at about 18 inches
from the centre of the fossil, and one at three feet ;
in this, as in the other instance, they are all bro-
ken off short. This fossil, as before observed,
occurred in the bed of shale immediately over the
coal, towards which all the branches slanted.
Two of these, which were longer than the others,
were seen to reach the coal, where they were lost
in the mass ; whether the others had done so or
not, could not be ascertained.

It would be out of place here, to recapitulate
what has been already said of the form and nature
of this strange fossil ; but we must be allowed to
observe, that the opportunities of further exami-
nation afforded by these several specimens, have
proved that the centre was a continuous homoge-
neous cup, or dome, and not the remains of the

light ill a short period, by the working of the mine ; and that
only in the roof of the passages, as from the mode of operation
rendered necessary by the nature of the bed above the coal,
at the first working, two thirds of that substance is left stand-
ing for its support; when this coal is afterwards removed, the
roof will fall, so that it may never be possible to ascertain how
many of these fossils now remain covered up.

XV

arms squeezed into a single mass, as we formerly
surmised it might be. We have, also, been fur-
nished with the most convincing evidence of the
leaves proceeding from the stem in all directions,
thus : —

( A ) Layers of Shale.

and, although we must still suppose the great length
assigned to the leaves by that intelligent observer,
Mr. Steinhauer, of 20 feet, to have originated in
some error of observation, it gives us pleasure thus
further to confirm the views originally taken by
him, of this singular tribe of plants; we have, our-
selves, seen the leaves well defined, three feet
long.

Could it be possible for these plants, of a yield-
ing fleshy substance, with numerous arms pro-
ceeding on all sides from a central dome, to be
floated from the dry land, and buried in the mud

xvi

of an estuary, without being broken and squeezed
— the extent of the out-stretched arms, when per-
fect, having been at least 20 to 30 feet ? If they
had been so floated, they must of necessity, in
sinking down upon the muddy surface, have become
flattened, and could not have presented the convex
form we now find them invariably in. The leaves,
also, which thickly surrounded the arms, could
not, under any circumstances, even supposing
them to have been hard woody spines, (which
they assuredly were not,) have taken the direc-
tion in which we now find them, proceeding from
the stem on all sides at right angles to its axis, and
penetrating the shale, even perpendicularly up and
down, to the extent of two or three feet, at least ; had
the plants been floated, the leaves, on the contrary,
must of necessity have been pressed upon the
arms, surrounding which we should have found
their remains, in confused masses, and spread out
irregularly by their side, in the plane of the sur-
face on which the plant had finally reposed ; none
of this, however, takes place; but, on the contrary,
when the shale is split, so as to expose the sur-
face of the fossil, the leaves are seen proceeding,
with the greatest regularity, each from its sepa-
rate tubercle, those only being distinct in the
length and breadth^ which, when in a growing
state, had been shot out in the plane which is
now the cleavage of the shale. (See plates 32
and 33, vol. 1.)

xvii

From all these circumstances, we are compelled
to conclude, that these Stigmari^e were not floated
from a distance, but that, on the contrary, they
grew on the spots where we now find their re-
mains, in the soft mud, most likely, of still
and shallow water. It is worthy of observa-
tion, that the fossil remains of a Unio, (unde-
scribed,) occur^ in considerable abundance, asso-
ciated with the Stigmarige, but, in a shale, which
forms the covering of the high main coal in the
same colliery ; and about 45 fathoms above the
Stigmaria bed, as we may very appropriately
designate it, there is, in one spot, a considerable
accumulation of this same fossil Unio ; the coal
has been worked out under the layer of shells, in
all directions, and they are found to cover an area
of 5000 square feet. The shells are partly em-
bedded in the coal itself, (which is spoiled by
them,) and partly in the shale above it; the bed
is about 18 inches thick; the animals have, evi-
dently, died at various ages ; and the shells, of all
sizes, are, many of them, gaping open. As it is
impossible to conceive these, consisting of one
species only, to have been brought from a dis-
tance, and deposited here, we must conclude, that
this bed of shells, (and there are many more
known in other parts of the series,) marks what
had been, for some considerable period, as com-
pared with the age of man, the uppermost surface
of the earth, upon which fresh, and, probably, still

xviii

water, had reposed, as in the before-cited case.
Now, although it may be true, that the presence
of organic remains in any stratum, be evidence
sufficient of its having once been at the surface,
yet the additional evidence in these cases, is so
far valuable, as it proves that these beds remained
uncovered for a period of considerable duration ;
long enough, indeed^, for plants of a large size to
flourish, and beds of muscles of considerable thick-
ness to form, by the successive growth and decay
of the animals.

What an amazing idea is thus forced upon us,
of the length of the period which might elapse,
during the deposition of the Coal measures alone,
where the beds here referred to, are but two in
hundreds, any one of which may have have been
as long uncovered by its successors in the series ;
and what is the whole of the Coal formation, com-
pared with the great mass of the secondary strata?
— a single layer of stones in a stupendous edifice !

It has been already stated, that one of the
seams of coal in the Northern Coal Field, is known
over an area of 200 square miles; now, supposing
this seam to have originated in the way generally
believed, by a sweeping of vegetables from the
land, could we, in any case, conceive such a mass
floated down at one time, as to cover such a
space ? And if this bed be also spread over the
formation where it has not yet been worked, we
shall have to double or treble the space ; if it had

xix

been so produced, is it likely it would have pre-
sented, throughout the whole of this extent, an
absolute continuity, and an even thickness — this
thickness being, at the same time, so inconsider-
able, as rarely to exceed six feet ? Should we not
rather have expected to find the vegetable matter
unequally spread, and irregularly accumulated ?

Again — if this seam of coal had originated in
the violent action of a current of water, sweeping
vegetables from the spots where they grew, would
not some of the soil and detritus in which they
vegetated, or the loosely aggregated matter which
then, at least periodically, existed in abundance,
be washed down and mixed with them ? There
is no evidence of violent action whatever in the
beds of the Coal measures; there is not any thing
approaching a conglomerate, the grains of sand
comprising the sandstone being the largest trans-
ported fragments visible. It is one remarkable
character of the seams of rich coal, that, from the
floor to the roof^ (to use the miners expressive
terms,) they contain no foreign admixture what-
ever. Occasionally, thin layers of sandstone, or
shale, occur, by which the seam is partially di-
vided into two or more parts, indicating a slight
partial effusion of stony matter over the surface
of the vegetable mass, whilst it was yet forming ;
but this is the exception to the rule; and only one
instance, that we are aware of, has ever occurred,
of a rolled fragment of stone being found in the

XX

coal, and that was a pebble of water worn grey
quartz, in Backworth Colliery, near Newcastle ;
we may be tolerably certain that such a circum-
stance is not common, as the high character of
the Newcastle coal arises, in part, from the total
absence of foreign matter.

Other arguments, to prove that the plants which
formed coal were either not drifted at all, or at
least not from any great distance, may be found
not only in the perfect state of the leaves of many
Ferns, but in the sharp angles of the stems of
plants which there is every reason to believe
must have been of a very succulent nature, such
for example as Favularia tessellata, tt. 73, 74, and
75 of this work; and many of the Sigillarias, some
of which occur with their surface marked with
lines and streaks so delicate, that a day's drifting
would have injured them. Again, at t. 76, we have
figured a cluster of the fruits called Cardiocarpon
acutum ; had these been drifted, one would think
they must have been dispersed, instead of being-
collected into one spot, just as if they had fallen
there from the plant that bore them.

That the fossils which we find irregularly in-
terspersed in the sandstones, or shales, of this
formation, may have, in some instances, originated
from drifted vegetables, there is, perhaps, reason
to believe ; thus it may have been with Dicotyle-
donous trees, fragments only of whose stems have
been traced 70 feet long, without either extremity

xxi

being seen ; these we are sure must have grown
upon a dry surface, and that surface have been
unchanged for many years. And, in fact^ they
are found in just the state in which we should ex-
pect to find drifted stems, their limbs shattered,
their bark beaten and rotted off, and their wood
in a high state of decay. But that any consider-
able part of the plants which formed the beds
of coal were drifted at all, appears, from the fore-
going remarks, to be highly improbable ; that they
should have been brought by equatorial currents
from the regions of the tropics, is perfectly chime-
rical.

When such a mass of vegetable matter as is
now periodically brought down by the Mississippi,
is deposited upon mud, or sand, of which the
bottom of some of its branches, or bays, may con-
sist, and is there covered by another bed of sand,
or mud ; is it likely, that, if, at any future period,
the Carbonaceous deposit should be removed,
the surface of the beds, either above or below it,
would be even and flat ? Would it not rather be
found, that the interstices and inequalities which
there must be betwixt the trunks of the trees,
had been filled up by the matter which covered
the mass, and that some of the stronger stems,
having settled unequally, had stood out, pene-
trating the surrounding soft strata, either above,
or below ? Something of this kind, under similar
circumstances, must, at all times, have been the
case ; yet, nothing like an indication of it attends

VOL. II. c

XXll

our coal beds, for, not only are they, as before
observed, free from the admixture of matter fo-
reign to the formation, but the surfaces by which
the coal is separated from the beds above and
below it, are as even and well defined, as those
of the limestones in the lower part of the series.

From the circumstances already related, we are
compelled to the conclusion, that the beds of coal
chiefly originated in vegetable matter which
lived, died, and was decomposed, upon the spots
where we now find it. The analogy of Peat, at
the present day, naturally suggests itself; and,
according to this view of the subject, we must
consider each of our coal beds as having originated
in an extended surface of marshy land, covered
with a rank luxuriant vegetation. Should the
length of time required for such an accumulation
of vegetable matter suggest itself as a difficulty,
it may be in part got over, when we bear in mind
the fact of the enormous size of the individual
plants, and that all those having any living analo-
gues, sufficiently attest a much more rapid growth,
consequent upon a heated humid atmosphere, than,
at present, is any w^here known to take place. The
diiference is, probably, not greater betwixt the
stunted growth of an Iceland vegetation of the
present day, and the rank luxuriance of a tropical
swamp, than between even the latter and the ve-
getation of the Carboniferous period.

The remains of Stigmaria are so abundant
throughout the whole of the Carboniferous for-

xxiii

niation, that it is impossible to travel far along
any road, without its form being detected by the
practised eye. In some of the best and most closely
observed instances of its mode of occurrence in the
bed before described, the arms could be traced
from the central dome, slanting downwards into the
coal, where all trace of them was completely lost.
Coal, which rarely bears any outward vegetable
form, presents that of Stigmaria oftener than any
other, and it is certainly one of the most abundant
fossils of the whole formation ; from which facts, we
should appear to be fully warranted in considering,
that the growth of plants of this class was one of
the great means made use of by the Almighty
Architect of the globe, in absorbing and rendering
solid that excess of Carbon, which, it is believed,
must, at the period of the formation of the Coal-
measures, have existed in the atmosphere; thus ren-
dering it fit for the support of animal life, and, at
last, a proper habitation for man. We cannot con-
template this storing up such a mass of combus-
tible matter, and the iron which always accom-
panies it in the depths of the earth, at a remote
epoch, for the consumption and enjoyment of
creatures, afterwards to exist on its surface, with-
out being struck with the benevolence and wisdom
manifest in the design.

Whilst contemplating a bed of coal as the pro-
duct of vegetation swept from a higher level of
dry land, the question is ever recurring — where
was the land? — a question which, as far as we

xxiv

know it, is impossible to answe i and which
might be considered alone sufficient to shake the
theory of the Coal-plants having been drifted from
neighbouring hills. We are well aware that this is
but one of a thousand questions in Geology more
easy to propound than to solve ; but, surely, there
ought to be some indication of those rocks, of
anterior formation, on which this mass of vege-
tation grew ; the surface that could supply so
much, could be of no inconsiderable extent.
That the plants had not been brought from a great
distance, is proved, by the perfect state of pre-
servation of the most delicate filmy leaves. The
only rocks of the older formation, near to the
great Northern Coal Field, are the Cumberland
group, and the Cheviots; but it is certain that
the former were protruded at a period long sub-
sequent to the formation of the Coal measures ;
and, although there is in the case of the Cheviots
a want of evidence to carry us so far up in the
great series, yet we are sure that they rose, after
the deposition and consolidation of the older mem-
bers, at least, of the Carboniferous formation.
The beds below the Coal measures, do now rise,
at their western edge, to a height somewhat
mountainous; but here, again, we have proof
of a rising, long posterior to the formation of the
coal ; and they are, besides, a part of the series
we are considering, and are characterized by the
presence of the same class of vegetable fossils as
have, doubtless, formed coal.

XXV

There are three principal varieties of Bitumi-
nous Coal, each of which occur in the Northern
Coal Field ; — viz. fine caking Coal, which is a
crystalline compound, breaking into rhomboidal
fragments ; Cannel, called, also, Splint, and
Parrot Coal, which is compact and tough, break-
ing with a conchoidal fracture; and Slate Coal,
which is a mixture of the two other varieties, in
thin horizontal layers.

The finest caking coal, of which the Newcastle
Coal Field principally consists, being, as before
stated, a crystalline compound^ its constituents
must have been in a state of solution. Cannel,
or Parrot Coal, often bears the impression of
plants, as does the third variety; but it is possi-
ble to prepare slices of all of them so thin as to
be transparent, which, upon examination by the
microscope, show the tissue of the original vege-
tables very clearly ; Cannel Coal seems to re-
tain it throughout the whole mass, whilst it exists
in fine coal in small patches only^ which appear,
as it were, mechanically entangled.

By the microscopic examination of coal, a sin-
gular arrangement becomes visible ; a number of
elongated tubular passages are found, filled with a
beautiful wine-yellow coloured resinous matter,
which is the most volatile part of the solid coal,
being what is first driven off when coal is exposed
to heat. Each variety of coal exhibits this struc-
ture in a greater or less degree, but fine coal the
least, as, in it, the vegetable elements appear to

xxvi

form an almost perfect union. When the diffe-
rent varieties of coal occur together in the same
seam, or bed, as they frequently do, they are not
indiscriminately mixed, but have a well defined
line of separation between them. In Wylam Col-
liery^ near Newcastle, the principal bed of coal
is, at its lower part, a fine splint, approaching
Cannel, the middle and main part is Crystalline
coalj and the upper part of the seam is a mixture
of the other two, in alternate layers, thus present-
ing, in one seam, all the three varieties of the
Newcastle district. But it is not the seams of
coal only which exhibit these abrupt changes of
nature, as small specimens may be gathered at
the mouth of every mine, which, within the com-
pass of an inch, will, upon their perpendicular
faces, show alternate layers of fine crystalline
coal, and coal destitute of crystalline structure.
It is certain each bed of coal, and more particularly
each separate layer in that bed, must have been
placed in precisely similar circumstances since
the deposition of the vegetable matter of which it is
composed ; and we cannot suppose that matter to
have obtained any of its elements after it was
buried in the earth, but rather that the difference
between the several varieties of coal and recent
vegetables, as shewn by analysis, must have arisen
from the play of affinities which has taken place
in the mass when reduced to such a state as to
allow of motion avnongst the particles, (the result
of the most complete solution of the fibre being

xxvii

the finest coal, whilst in the indifferent varieties
this motion appears to have been obstructed by
the tissue,) from which it seems naturally to follow
that the several varieties of coal arise from some
difference existing, previous to deposition, and that
difference is most likely to have been, originally, in
the nature of the plants, of whose remains the coal
beds consist. If we are right in this conclusion, we
are thus furnished with an additional argument
against the common opinion of the origin of coal ;
if the vegetables had been washed from a dis-
tance, is it likely that the different kinds would
have separated so completely, as to have produced
the several varieties of coal, so distinct from each
other ? often in layers, far too thick and continuous
for us to suppose them to have originated, but
from a multitude of plants of the same kind.
However this may have been^ we have little doubt
of being able to pronounce, with tolerable accu-
racy, as the knowledge of the subject extends,
what the plants were, the remains of which are of
such incalculable value to us in the form of coal.

It was at one time believed, that the remains
of Dicotyledonous woods did not exist in the
Carboniferous formation ; but subsequent obser-
vation, aided by the power of the microscope,
which has been applied with so much perseverance
and effect, by our esteemed friend and fellow la-
bourer, Mr.Witham, has enabled us to detect them
in almost every quarry. Nevertheless, the great
bulk of the vegetables, of what may emphatically

XXVlll

be called the Carboniferous period, undoubtedly
have been of the genera Sigillaria, Lepidoden-
dron, Calamites, Sigillaria, and Ferns. The more
woody plants^ on the contrary, after being bu-
ried, were able to resist decay, until their fine
tissue was completely filled up and sustained, by
the gradual infiltration of mineral matter.

It is in consequence of the almost universal
change into coal, which has taken place in plants
of this period, that their internal organization is
so obscure ; but, fortunately for our science, in-
dividuals are sometimes found uncompressed, and
retaining the form of their internal organization in
considerable perfection.

Mr. Witham has thus, already, been able to
detect the structure of a Lepidodendron, which
was fortunately found by the Rev. C. G. V.
Harcourt, and upon which we shall have to make
some observations in the present volume. To this
part of the subject we should wish to direct the
attention of our friends, more particularly such
as may be resident in those Carboniferous dis-
tricts where Calcareous Spar, and Sulphuret and
Carbonate of Iron, abound ; it is only where mi-
neralizing matter has been held in chemical solu-
tion in abundance, that we can expect to find the
delicate and evanescent textures of the coal fossils
preserved. By careful examination in such situa-
tions, and the aid of the microscope, the secret of
their real nature will be revealed.

'/j Natural Size

80

BOTHRODENDRON PUNCTATUM.

( corticated,)

From the roof of the Higli Main Coal-seam, at
Jarrow Colliery.

This is the remains of some large plant, of
which the scarred stems and the bodies that be-
long to the scars alone are left.

Upon the surface of the stem are discoverable
a considerable number of minute dots, arranged
in a quincuncial manner, something less than
half an inch apart : and it is probable that those
may be the scars of leaves ; but at present there
is nothing to prove that they were so.

At intervals of ten or eleven inches, the stem
is marked with deep circular concavities, four or
five inches across, at the bottom of each of which
is a distinct fracture, indicating that something
has been broken out ; while the sides of the con-
cavities have concentric marks, as if from the
pressure upon them of rounded scales.

VOL. II. A

2

Fragments, of which we possess one, have been
taken out of the cavities, and shew that they are
the points of attachment of very large cones, con-
sisting, as far as can be made out from what is
left, of rounded polished scales, three-tenths of an
inch thick, attached to a central axis, and fitting
accurately to each other. Upon the whole, they
have so completely the appearance of the base of
such a strobilus as that of Pinus Lamhertiana, that
we cannot doubt that the plant belonged to the
natural order Conifer (E.

In recent plants, however, we have nothing at
all like this in the manner in which the cones
appear : for it seems as if they grew from the old
trunk ; unless, indeed, we are to suppose, of which
there is no proof, that the plant knew no seasons,
but grew with such rapidity that its branches
had acquired, by the second year, a diameter of
seven or eight inches.

Of all the anomalous forms that the Coal mea-
sures have afforded traces, this is, perhaps, the
most remarkable, and the best made out as to its
external structure.

♦ Natural Size

81

BOTHRODENDRON PUNCTATUM.

( decorticated ? )

From Percy Main Colliery.

This is, in size, and all other characters, so simi-
lar to the last, that we can discover little differ-
ence between them, except in the absence, in
this specimen, of the quincuncial dots, found on
the surface of the other. We presume this to be an
accidental circumstance, and that the specimen
in question has lost its external surface. The
scars are not more than six inches apart ; but this
cannot be taken as a distinctive mark, unsupported
by other peculiarities.

A 2

82

ANTHOLITHES PITCAIRNI^.

From the shale associated with the Low Main
Coal, at Felling Colliery.

Perhaps it would be scarcely worth publishing
such fragments as those now represented, if it
were not for the sake of adding a new proof to
those already known, of the existence of an ex-
tremely diversified Flora, and of many highly
organized plants, at the period of the Old Coal-
formation.

This is, beyond all doubt, the remains of the
inflorescence of some plant ; but it would puzzle
the most ingenious speculator to find a single cha-
racter in the fossil, upon which a positive opi-
nion as to its original nature can be formed. It
seems as if it had been half decayed before it was
imbedded, and its parts of fructification have so
blended together, that it is in vain to attempt even
to describe them ; all that can be said is, that

A 3

Maifiiified

83

NEUROPTERIS UNDULATA.

From the upper sandstone and shale of the
Oolitic rocks, at Gristhorp Bay, near Scarborough,
where it was discovered by Mr. W. Williamson,
jun., to whom we are indebted for the figure,
together with a specimen, and the following me-
morandum.

** This plant appears to have grown to a con-
siderable length ; as, in the specimen from which
the accompanying drawing was taken, there is
little or no variation in the thickness of the pe-
tiole, through a space of eight inches. The latter
has a deep furrow running down the centre."

From this circumstance, it is evident that the
specimen is preserved with its upper surface only
exposed to view ; a circumstance which is so
common, as to lead to the suspicion, that the true
cause of the general absence of remains of fructifica-
tion in fossil Ferns, is the greater adhesion of their
lower fructifying surface to the matter in which they

A 4

Magnifud.

84

PECOPTERIS REPANDA.

From Jarrow Coal Mine.

We know no species of Pecopteris with which
this can be confounded ; its very blunt leaflets,
which are almost cordate at the base, and its un-
dulated outline, together with the distance at
which its veins are placed from each other, are all
peculiar to itself.

We have not, at present, met with it in any-
other situation than that above mentioned.

Natural '^i-ee ' j Natural Siz<^

85

HALONIA? TORTUOSA.

In sandstone, in a quarry near South Shields,
from a specimen furnished by Isaac Cookson, Esq.

Whatever this may have been, it is evidently
very distinct from any thing hitherto described.
Probably, the present specimen has been jammed
and distorted so much, as to have lost, in a great
degree, its original character, but enough remains
to convey some idea of its external structure.

It seems to have been a plant of small dimen-
sions, the surface of whose stem was completely
covered with little processes, which, in falling
away, left minute quincuncial ill-defined spots,
that rapidly became separated and obliterated,
as the stem advanced in age. Among these spots,
at intervals of three-fourths of an inch every way,
were arranged little projections, the apex of which
was terminated by some appendage now lost.
The ramification seems to have been dichotomous,
but this is extremely uncertain.

»6

HALONIA GRACILIS.

From the Coal measures of Low Moor, in York-
shire.

At first sight one would be disposed to consider
this a Lepidodendron, to which its rhomboidal scars
give it a strong resemblance. But if we consider
Lepidodendron as an extinct form of LycopodiacecB,
we must limit it to those fossils in which the
mode of branching was dichotomous, for no other
kind of ramification is met with in recent LycopO'
diacece.

Here, however, it is plain, from the numerous
scars of branches, that they were arranged in an
alternate manner round a common elongating axis,
after the plan that now obtains in the Spruce Fir.
In fact, if we compare this with a vigorous branch
of a Spruce Fir, one year old, we shall find the
resemblance very striking, even in the scars of the
leaves.

87

CARPOLITHES ALATA.

From Jarrow Colliery.

It seems hopeless to determine the affinities of
fossil fruits, unless they can be procured attached
to the branches that bore them : for it is, in
general, impossible, from external inspection only,
to tell the relationship even of recent fruits.

For this reason we will not occupy time in pro-
fitless speculation upon the fossil plants to which
these seeds have belonged, but confine ourselves
to one point only.

It has been suggested that they are the remains
of the seeds of some of the gigantic ConifercB that
flourished in the primaeval forests, from the de-
struction of which coal has been produced ; and
one would certainlyexpect to meet with both their

IC

cones and seeds, wherever the branches, which are
the most perishable part, have been preserved.
But up to the present day, we believe, that no one
has found any trace of such parts, except in the
curious case of Bothrodeiidrony (see page 1) ; un-
less some of the Lepidostrobi are considered
Coniferous.

We cannot say that the fruit now represented
is likely to have belonged to any of the extinct
Pines; at the same time one would be hardly
justified in absolutely denying it. Fig. 1, repre-
sents the fossil in a nearly complete state, with
the outer shell unbroken ; but there is nothing to
shew whether the shell was pericarpial or seminal.
At Fig. 2, it is partially broken, so as to shew an
internal cavity in which a round body is visible,
which may have been either a seed or a nucleus ;
from the twisted appearance of the surface of a
part of this specimen, we may conclude that the
shell was of spongy texture. Fig. 3, represents
the nature of the internal cavity in a still clearer
manner ; and it is evident that from the thicker
end, where the seed lies to the narrow end, there
was either a passage, or a vascular communica-
tion. In the former case, it might have been
Coniferous ; in the latter, it must have been of a
totally different kind, and the specimen must be
considered inverted.

In point of size^, the only recent Coniferous
seed that can be compared to this, is that of Aran-

17

caria, one of which, from A. Dombeiji, is repre-
sented at Fig. 4, for the purpose of shewing how
little resemblance there is between even this and
the fossils in question.

VOL. II

B

Bubiyhttl. hy&Kdaway A ■iotvr./.emdon. Julv.

88

ARAUCARIA PEREGRINA.

Communicated with the following fossil, from
the Blue Lias of Lyme, in Dorsetshire, by the
Misses Philpot.

The specimen, which has been carefully cleaned
from the lias when soft, is one of the most perfect
that we have ever seen ; every thing, even the
surface of the leaves^ having been completely pre-
served. Unfortunately, the accompanying figure
is not so good as could be wished ; but we trust
that any defects in it will be supplied by the fol-
lowing description of the specimen.

It consists of a branch upwards of a foot long,
from the sides of which proceed four or five
laterals, spreading widely from the main stem,
and slightly curved. Both these, and the prin-
cipal stem, are closely covered by thick, ovate,
blunt leaves, which seem to have had a very
broad edge, and a rhomboidal figure, and which

B 2

20

over-lap each other nearly half their length ; when
fresh, the leaves were probably even on the sur-
face, but now they are a good deal shrivelled,
as if they had been half decayed when imbedded,
and their midrib projects till it reaches the apex,
which is slightly curved inwards ; the whole sur-
face is marked by minute impressed dots, like the
elytra of a coloptercus insect.

Although the specimen is in good preservation,
and of large size^ yet no trace of fructification is
discoverable on it.

The imbricated leaves remind one of the sur-
face of Lepidodsndron ; but their thickness and
bluntnesSj and the want of all tendency to a di-
chotomous ramification, render it improbable that
the specimen was much related to that genus.

It is no doubt to Coniferse that it is to be re-
ferred ; and in fact it is so similar to the adult
specimens of Araucaria e.vcelsay the Norfolk Island
Pine, that at first we fancied we should have a
case of identity between a fossil and a recent
plant.

But upon comparing the two plants carefully,
it turns out that the leaves of the fossil are so
much larger and blunter than those of the recent
species, as to leave no doubt of their having been
specifically distinct. At the same time, the com-
parison confirms their great similarity, and estab-
lishes the important fact, that at the period of
the deposit of the lias, the vegetation was similar

21

to that of the southern hemisphere, not alone in the
single fact of the presence of Cycadeae, but that
the Pines were also of the nature of species now
found only to the south of the Equator. Of the
four recent species of Araucaria at present known,
one is found on the east coast of New Holland,
another in Norfolk Island, a third in Brazil, and
the fourth on the south eastern Alps of the Ame-
rican Continent.

89

STROBILITES ELONGATA.

From the Blue Lias of Lyme, in Dorsetshire ;
communicated from the Museum of the Misses
Philpot.

This remarkable fossil has occurred in a rounded
mass of the Lias, the fracture of which has dis-
covered it. It was evidently a cone formed of
broad imbricated scales, which were longer about
the middle of the cone than either at the base or
apex. The scales in front of the specimen having
been imbedded in the lias, are broken off, and
nothing remains of them but their fractured bases ;
but from the impressions of those at the side, it
would seem that they had rather a lax arrange-
ment, and were broadest at the point of attach-
ment to the axis, that they tapered to the points,
which were a little recurved, and that these points
were abruptly truncated. This structure is suffi-
ciently visible in some parts of the accompanying
figure ; but it is much more perceptible in the
fragment that corresponds with the part now re-
presented ; from this fragment we are able to dis-
cover that the lower scales were not only shorter.

24

but also thinner than the upper. No trace of the
original surface remains; but in its room, a thin
stratum of cracked and broken carbonaceous
matter overlies all the parts.

We presume there can be little doubt of this
being a cone of some kind ; and if so, it must
have belonged either to some Coniferous genus, or
to one of the Cycadeae ; for no other natural orders
bear cones of such a kind.

To which of these it is to be referred, can
scarcely be a matter of doubt. The great breadth
of the scales at the point of their insertion into
the axis is at variance with the structure of
Zam'ia, to which alone, among Cycadeae, the
fossil can be compared ; but it is in perfect ac-
cordance with that of Coniferae, whether we con-
trast the specimen with the narrow cones of Pinus
Strobus, and its allies, or with the broad ovate
ones of such plants as Araucaria and Cunning-
hamia. It is, however, far from agreeing with any
modern species, from all which its tapering but
truncated scales distingush it essentially.

Is it possible that it can be the fruit of the plant
last figured ? This must of course be mere con-
jecture, there being no sort of evidence either for
or against the supposition. It is nevertheless
deserving notice, that supposing that plant to
have been related to Araucaria, this fruit is of the
same nature as it would in that case have been
likely to have borne.

Fuhl^htJ by Rid^a^y s~ S/ms.Loniion. OetT J 63 i

90

CYCLOPTERIS OBLIQUA.

Cyclopteris obliqua. Ad. Brongn. Prodr. p. o2. Hist, des
Vegetmix Fossiles. 1. 220. t, Gl. /.

Cyclopteris auriculata. fd. Prodr. p. 108.

Specimens of this extremely well marked fossil
are not of very uncommon occurrence, but they
do not seem to have been met with out of England.
M. Adolphe Brongniart figured it from Yorkshire
specimens, given him by Mr. Greenough ; those
now represented are from Jarrow Colliery ; and
we have received a drawing of a small specimen
from Mr. Conway, found in the mines of Pont-
newyddj near Newport, in Monmouthshire.

It appears to have varied a good deal in size,
our fig. A being of the natural dimensions, B about
a quarter less than the natural size, and Mr. Con-
way's much smaller than even A.

VOL. II. c

26

There is no living plant with which this can be
identified, nor any fossil species for which it can
be mistaken, the singular manner in which the
base is hollowed out giving it almost the appear-
ance of a human ear. It is not certain whether it
was a simple leaf, or only a division of a compound
leaf; but the want of any stalk to the base, in
room of which there is the trace of what appears
to have been a distinct disarticulation, inclines us
to the belief that the latter is the more probable ;
and if so, it must have been, when alive, one of
the most remarkable of its tribe, far exceeding in
its dimensions any recent species.

The veins all radiate and dichotomize from the
very base, and in no case appear to run together
into a midrib ; thus answering to the structure on
which the genus Cyclopteris essentially depends,
provided the leaves were simple. But if they were
compound, it would rather belong to the genus
Neuropteris. See tab. 91 A.

91 A

NEUROPTERIS INGENS.

We have received this species from several dif-
ferent localities. The specimen figured is from
Jarrow Colliery, and we have several others in
nodules of carbonate of iron from the Yorkshire
Coal field. They vary in size from two inches
and a quarter to nearly three inches in length, by
from an inch and three quarters to two inches and
a quarter in width.

Their texture seems to have been membranous,
if we can judge from the very filmy and delicate
state of their impressions. The outline was rather
wavy, and the apex rounded; the base was appa-
rently heart-shaped, and more or less oblique.
The veins are almost those of Cyclopteris ; that is
to say, they radiate from one common point, with
little or no tendency to run into a midrib; but in
some species they decidedly do coalesce ; and the
crreat resemblance the leaflets bear to those of

c2

28

Neuropter'is auriculata, leaves scarcely any room
to doubt their having belonged to a similar plant.

In fact, it is not easy to say in v^hat respect
N. iJigens differs from the species just mentioned;
but we are nevertheless persuaded that they must
have been specifically distinct, for the leaflets of
the present plant are at least twice, and frequently
nearly three times as large as the largest of those
of N. auriculata.

Is it not possible that Cyclopteris ohliqua and
Neuropter'is ingens may both be leaflets of the
same plant, the former coming from the base, and
the latter from the sides of the divisions of the
leaves? like the roundish, auriculated, and oblong
leaflets of Neuropteris auriculata.

91 B

CYCLOPTERIS DILATATA.

From Felling Colliery.

This appears to have been of a very thin and
delicate texture, and of considerable size; we
possess one specimen, containing two-thirds of a
leaf, which measures eight inches in breadth ; it
is probably on this account that it is never found
perfect.

The outline of this species varies from nearly
orbicular to oblong, with the principal diameter
parallel with the base ; it has an undulated sur-
face, and its base is closed by two deep and
equal lobes, which overlap each other. The veins
radiate and dichotomize from their common
point, without the slightest tendency to form a
midrib.

At first sight it might be taken for C. reniformis\
but that species does not seem to have been of so
delicate a texture, was not much more than one

c 3

30

third the size, and had not its base closed up by
two overlapping lobes ; on the contrary, its lobes
were so short, as not to meet by a considerable
distance.

Maomfud

92

T/ENIOPTERIS MAJOR.

Found ill the shale of the Gristhorpe bed, in
the Oolitic formation, near Scarborough, by Mr.
William Williamson, Jun., to whom we are obliged
for an excellent drawing, and for the following
note.

The specimen is about five inches long, and
two broad ; the midrib is strong, and has a line
upon its centre which gives it the appearance of
having been once angular." (This line is no doubt
the furrow that always exists upon the petioles of
leaves, and thus shews the impression to be that
of the upper surface.) Running out perpen-
dicularly from this midrib are numerous veins,
which are twice or thrice forked, first near the
middle, and again near the margin, in which
character it differs from T, vittata. Some of the
veins are even four times branched. The lower
extremity of the leaf is destroyed." •

c 4

32

To this we would only add, that while Tccniop-
teris vittata is hardly distinguishable in its fossil
state from the Indian Aspidium Wallichianum, the
species now represented may be almost identified
with our British Harts-tongue Fern, Scolopendrium
officinarum^ which may be found in every old well,
unless indeed the base of the fossil should prove,
when discovered, to be much more different than
its apex is.

As it would be a highly interesting discovery if
the identity of the fossil and recent species could
be established, we especially recommend a search
after more complete specimens of this plant to
our indefatigable friends at Scarborough.

Flute u

93

LYCOPODITES WILLIAMSONIS.

Lycopodites Williamsonis. Ad. Brongn. Prodr. p. 83.
Lycopodites uncifolius. Phillips' Yorkshire.

Found very plentifully in the Oolitic formation
of Scarborough. Mr. Phillips mentions it both in
the upper and lower Sandstone and Shale. Our
specimens are from Mr. Bean ; our drawing from
Mr. William Williamson, Jun., with the following
note.

This appears to have been a creeping plants
like our Lycopodium clavatum. The stem is fre-
quently branched, and concealed by the base of
the leaves, which are sessile^ and of an acute falci-
form shape. Up the centre of each leaf there is
one, and sometimes two strongly marked ridges,
which have evidently been edges of angles. The
leavcb are placed opposite each other, and have

34

frequently smaller ones situated between them.
The surface of the stem is covered with scales
apparently the base of leaves, which have lost
their points. The stems are terminated by a large
oval head, or cone, which is covered with small
hook-like processes, similar in form to the leaflets,
but smaller. Where the bituminous substance is
destroyed, there are strongly marked rhomboidal
spaces, looking like scars. Fragments of this
plant are very plentiful, but attached heads are
rarely met with ; the one figured is from Gristhorpe
Bay."

No modern species can be compared with this
for size, especially that of the heads, which are
very much the same as the Lepidostrobi of the
coal measures, fossils which probably belonged to
similar plants.

What we find more especially remarkable in
this species is, that, notwithstanding its great size,
it must have belonged to the most delicate division
of the genus, as is proved by the stipulae accom-
panying its leaves. The largest Lycopodia of the
present day have leaves without stipulas ; but in
the days when the Oolitic rocks were deposited,
things must have been ordered differently.

Mr. WiUiamson has drawn a specimen^ in which
the main stem terminates in a cone ; it often hap-
pens that the lateral branches also bear cones, but
in that case the former are so very short, that the
latter are almost sessile.

^TaXural St'^.f

94

PECOPTERIS NERVOSA.

Pecopteris nervosa. Ad. Bronyn. Hist, ties Vffjtlaux Fossiles,
t. 04. exoliuling Sternberg'^ Synonym.

In Shale from the Bensham Coal Seam, in
Jarrow Colliery.

This is evidently the same plant as is figured
(but not yet described) by M. Adolphe Brongniart,
at t. 94 of his great work, under the name we
have adopted ; but we cannot think the synonym
of Pecopteris bifurcata right, as that species has
evidently veins far more wide apart, and a very
different outline ; it is, however, in all probability^
the same plant as appears at t. 95. f. 1 and 2 of
M. Brongniart. The letter-press that refers to
these plates not having yet appeared, we are un-
acquainted with the motives that has led to the
combination of plants apparently so very different.

36

The appearance of this species calls to mind
several kinds of Asplenia m, but we have not
discovered any one with which it is of impor-
tance to compare it.

95

KNORRIA TAXINA.

From the roof of the High Main Seam, in Jarrow
Colliery.

Surely this must be a portion of the branch of
a Yew, or of some such plant. Let it only be
compared with the one year old shoots of that tree,
the leaves having been stripped off, and some-
thing very like identity will be found to exist ;
especially in the manner in which the leaves ran
down upon the stem, and in the nature of the scars
they left behind.

To illustrate this, we have introduced some
figures of the Yew branch of different ages, which
may also be taken as explanatory of other cases
of similar structure.

B. represents a very young Yew branch, with
its leaves broken off.

C. is the same, a little older, and with the
leaves fallen off naturally.

38

D. is another portion of a branch, much older ;
at a the bark is stripped off, so as to shew the
difference between the corticated and decorticated
surfaces.

Knorria is a genus of Count Sternberg's, not
noticed by Ad. Brongniart ; for remarks upon
which, see t, 97.

9G

CALAMITES

(The Base of a Stem,)

From the roof of the Benshani Seam, at Jarrow
Colliery.

To what species this singular fragment belongs,
we are unable to determine.

We only figure it for the sake of indicating
what the nature is of the fossils that appear in
this state.

Collectors should never trust to specimens of
such a kind as illustrative of strata, but should, in
all cases, take the middle or upper ends of the
stem, in which alone that evidence can be found
which is necessary for the determination of the
species of Calamites.

97

KNOURIA SELLONII.

Knurria Sellonii. Stenib. Flore du Monde, priniifif. fasc. i,
pp. xxxvii. Sf 50. t. 57

From Felling Colliery.

This plant, in a more perfect state, with the
leaves, and cortical integument nearly complete,
has been figured by Count Sternberg from the
Frederick Gallery in the coal mines of Saarbruck ;
the same author cites England, and the grauwacke
of the neighbourhood of Magdebourg, as also pro
ducing it.

In its more perfect state it presents a broad
even surface, covered with cylindrical processes,
which are not further apart than their own diame-
ter, or a little more. In the state now represented,
in which the bark and cylindrical processes have
altered their appearance from the wasting of the

VOL. II. D

42

stem before consolidation, the place of the proces-
ses is occupied by flattened projections, broke at
their ends, and marked by a very shallow furrow,
which passes from the point downwards, losing
itself on the surface of the stem.

Such a specimen as this would not throw much
light upon the original structure of the plant ; we
therefore transcribe Count Sternberg's account of
those which he had examined.

'* I formerly," he observes^ " described another
species of this genus, under the name of Lepidolepis,
being at that time of opinion that traces of the
attachment of scaly leaves could be distinguished
upon its impression. I have, nevertheless, since
satisfied myself not only by the examination of the
present subject {Knorria Sellonii), but also by
others of a similar kind, that in these cases it is
not mere scars that are preserved, but real cylin-
drical leaves, like those now commonly met with
in succulent plants. In this case, they are parti-
ally broken. If the point of insertion were visible^,
this plant would resemble a Variolaria (i. e. Sigil-
laria). There was this, in particular, in these
plants, that they were rounded at the top, like cer-
tain species of Euphorbia and Melocactus, where
a tuft of hairs, or something of a similar kind, termi-
nated the plant. This circumstance I have ob-
served in a Variolaria (Sigillaria) from Saarbruck,
and on a plant of the present genus in the organic
remains of Steinhauer. There can, therefore, be

43

little doubt that these were really the representa-
tives of succulent plants in the primaeval w^orld."

The other species to which Count Sternberg
refers in the preceding paragraph, formerly named
by him Lepidokpis imbr^icata^ and now Knorria
imbricata, he had procured from the grauwacke at
Magdebourg, and from the coal mines ofOrenburgh,
on the borders of Asia. We believe we may also
refer to that plant some remains found in the sand-
stone of the Ketley Coalfield, in Shropshire, for a
specimen of which (numbered 12) we are indebted
to Mr. Lloyd.

The genus Knorria is passed by unnoticed by
M. Adolphe Brongniart ; and even the species re-
ferred to it by Count Sternberg are uncited in the
Prodromus ; we are, therefore, ignorant to what
other genus M. Brongniart considers them redu-
cible.

It is with Lepidodendron and Stigmaria that
they have the greatest apparent relation, as far as
external characters go ; but if the opinions just
quoted are well founded, Knorria must have been
extremely different from the former; while the
latter would be distinguishable by the round pro-
jecting tubercles out of which the leaves arose.
We would, therefore, preserve the genus Knorria,
and provisionally refer to it not only the two spe-
cies of Count Sternberg, but also all fossil plants,
the leaves of which were in a densely arranged
spiral manner, and have left, not depressed but

D 2

44

projecting, scars. It is no doubt true, that, by
such a character as this^ plants may be combined
originally of extremely different appearance ; but
we are forced to admit such characters in the pre-
sent state of our science, from want of others of
a more positive kind.

98 & 99.

LEPIDODENDRON HARCOURTII.

Lepidodendron Harcourtii. Witham in Trans, of Nat. History
Soc. of Newcastle upon Tyne, March, 18:32. Id. Internal
Structure of Fossil Vegetables, p. 51. tt. 12, 13.

This interesting fossil occurred in the roof stone
of a bed of coal worked at Hesley Heath, near
Rothbury, in Northumberland : it is there found
a few fathoms below a thick limestone, which is
by some considered analogous to the great lime-
stone of Alston Moor: whether this be the case
or not, the position of the seam must be deep in
the mountain limestone series. The fossils are
found partly in the coal, and partly in the roof,
which, in many cases, consists of a mass of en-
crinal remains and shells^ such as Productae,
Melaniae, &c., with the exterior converted into
pyrites, in contact with the coal. The fossil
is mineralized with clay iron stone and iron pyrites,
having a coating of fine coal.

D 3

46

It was originally found by the Rev. C. G. V.
Vernon Harcourt^ Rector of Rothbury, to whose
liberality we are indebted for the inspection of
several specimens of the beautiful internal struc-
ture which Mr. Witham has, fortunately for sci-
ence, discovered to exist in it. By means of these,
of others communicated by Mr. Witham himself,
and of a portion of a stem belonging to the York-
shire Philosophical Society, for which we are
obliged to Mr. Phillips, we have been enabled to
prepare the following account of what is, beyond
all doubt, the most remarkable discovery in the
science of Fossil Botany.

The structure of this plant has already been so
carefully described by Mr. Witham, firstly, in the
Transactions of the Natural History Society of
Newcastle upon Tyne, and, secondly, in his va-
luable observations upon the internal structure of
Fossil Vegetables ; and the figures that accompany
the description of this indefatigable geologist are
so perfect, as to render it unnecessary for us, on
the present occasion, to do more than select some
of the more important parts of structure for re-
presentation, referring those who wish to consult
more extensive figures to the publications just
mentioned. There are also two or three points
upon which we hope to be able to throw some
additional light.

The stem seems to have been from an inch and
a half to two inches in diameter, and of a cylin-

47

drical figure,, producing forks occasionally. Its
surface was marked with scars, arranged in a
spiral manner, having the usual rhomboidal or
oval figure of other Lepidodendra, but not suf-
ficiently well preserved to shew precisely what
their configuration was ; they seem to have had a
furrow running down their middle. Over the
whole of these is now found a layer of carbona-
ceous matter, which is probably foreign to the
stem itself, as it exhibits no trace of structure,
and is apparently unconnected with the tissue
which it will presently be seen that the stem still
consists of.

When cut across and poHshed, the centre of
the stem is frequently found converted to calca-
reous spar, which also has filled up irregularly a
vast number of curved passages, proceeding up-
wards and outwards from the centre to the scars
upon the surface. These curved passages give
the stem, when sliced in a direction parallel to
the surface, the singularly mottled appearance
vvhich is represented in Mr. Witham's Plate xii.
f. 3 and 4. All the other part of the stem is hard
and black, and distinctly organized, the calca-
reous spar chiefly indicating the parts where the
tissue is obliterated.

When viewed with the microscope, the following
appearances present themselves. Next the surface
a horizontal section shews a dense layer of qua-
drangular meshes, very like those in Conifera?,

D 4

48

with irregular circles lying among them, also
similar to the fistulae of the same tribe of plants;
this dense layer of meshes passes irregularly and
insensibly into an extremely lax kind of cellular
tissue, which extends from this point to the axis^,
constituting the principal mass of the stem. (See
tab. 99. fig. 2. where a is the outside, b the in-
side, and c the irregular circles. A vertical sec-
tion of this same part, shews that none of the
above described meshes are the mouths of tubes,
but that they are merely sections of cellular tissue,
of which only that next the outside is elongated
perceptibly in the direction of the axis. (See
tab. 99. fig. 3, where a is the outside, and b the
inside.)

The centre of the stem, or the axis, when viewed
horizontally, is found to consist of a column of
very lax cellular tissue, the innermost part of
which is obliterated by calcareous spar; on the
outside of this is placed a circle, consisting of
much more compact cellular tissue, in which lie,
at nearly equal distances, and next the outside,
a considerable number of oval spaces, (Tab. 99.
fig. 1. a?) composed of a fine net-work, bordered
by a colourless ring, the structure of which is not
determinable. A vertical section of this part
shews that the fine net-work in the midst of the
colourless ring is the mouths of vessels having
most dhtinctlij a spiral structure. The aj^pearance
of these vessels, when verv highly magnified, is

49

given at tab. 99. fig. 4. What the colourless ring
was, is not discernible from the specimens we
have examined, but in all probahility it was the
tube of woody fibre, which, in recent plants, usually
accompanies and protects the bundles of spiral
vessels. This part of the structure, Mr. Witham
does not appear to have met with in his speci-
mens.

On the outside of the vascular sheath just de-
scribed, are occasionally to be seen little oval
spaces, composed of net-work like that within the
colourless rings, (see tab. 99. fig. 1. /;.) ; they have
been figured at his Tab. xiii. f. 4, a, and f. 2, e,
by Mr. Witham, who considers them bundles for-
merly surrounding pith, (p. 53 ) From their
position, and from the irregular distance at which
they are placed round the vascular sheath, they
were, we think, more probably the mouths of
the vessels, which it will be presently seen exist,
in the curved passages already spoken of.

From the centre to the circumference, obliquely
upwards and outwards, proceed a great multitude
of these curved passages, which evidently corre-
spond in number to the scars of the leaves, in
\Ahich they also terminate. A section of one of
these passages, made at right angles with its line
of growth, exhibits two clusters of meshes placed
one above the other, each surrounded and sepa-
rated from the other by a fine and nearly oblite-
rated net-work, which itself lies in the midst of

50

the coarse cellular tissue of the stem. (See tab. 99.
fig. 6. a. b.) An oblique section of a passage
shews also that the clusters of meshes were the
mouths of two bundles of spiral vessels, the upper
bundle being much larger than the under, (see
tab. 99. fig. 7. a. b.)\ this is confirmed by a lon-
gitudinal section of the same part, where the
vascular structure becomes beautifully and dis-
tinctly manifest, (see tab. 99. fig. 8. a. b.); in this
and the last case, the vessels are evidently sur-
rounded by a sort of fibrous matter, which is
probably woody fibre, the mouths of which pro-
duced the fine and nearly obliterated net-work of
fig. 6. Sometimes all trace of this organization
is destroyed, and the oblique sections of the pas-
sages are partially filled with unorganized carbo-
naceous matter, as at tab. 99. fig. 5.

We believe the whole of the foregoing de-
scription is essentially in accordance with Mr.
Witham's observations^ with the exception of the
vascular sheath described as surrounding the cen-
tral cellular column or pith ; a pointy however, to
which great importance must be attached.

Such being the structure of this plants we have
thought it might not be entirely useless if we in-
troduced into one of our plates an ideal view of
its tissue restored to what may be presumed to
have been its state when growing. This will be
found at tab 98. fig. 2, where the figures and let-
ters all correspond with the same figures and

51

letters in tab. 99, so as to shew at once the evi-
dence upon which the restoration has been made.
Unfortunately, the vertical section next the bark
is not represented quite as we could have wished,
for the diameter of the elongated cells is greater in
the vertical than in the horizontal section, and
there are also some other points in which our
engraver has not been so faithful as we could have
desired. We trust, however, that the figure will
answer the purpose for which it was intended.

The next point for consideration is^ how far the
discovery of the internal anatomy of this plant
confirms the opinions previously entertained of
the analogy of Lepidodendron to recent plants.

It has been generally admitted that this ge-
nus was related to Lycopodiaceae ; it has even
been believed to be identical with the recent
Lycopodium ; and Mr. Witham considers that
there is nothing in the structure of the present
species that might tend to invalidate the opinion.

It is, however, no small gratification to ourselves
to find, that all which we said upon the subject
at page 19, &c. of our first volume, is completely
confirmed ; and that it is not exactly like
either Coniferae or Lycopodiaceae, but that it
occupies an intermediate station between those
two orders," &c. vol, l.p. 21.

It had a central pith, it had a vascular sheath
surrounding that pith, and it had fistular passages
in its cortical integument ; thus far it was Coni-

ferous. But no trace can be found of glandular
woody fibre ; it can scarcely be said to have had
any wood ; and it is uncertain whether it had
bark ; if it had, the bark must be considered to
extend from the external surface to the vascular
sheath ; nor is there even in recent Coniferae
such distinctly marked curved passages, connect-
ing the leaves with the vascular sheath ; curved
passages, no doubt, exist in Coniferae, but they
form a very inconsiderable proportion of the vas-
cular system.

Its vascular system was confined to the middle
of the stem, and to the curved passages emanating
from it; the stem consisted chiefly of lax cellular
tissue, which became more compact towards the
outside, and it had a very powerful communica-
tion between the bases of its leaves and the central
vascular system ; thus far it was Lycopodiaceous.
But recent plants of the latter tribe have no fistu-
lar cavities in their cortical integument: a point of
great importance, because such cavities indicate
the presence of resinous or other secretions, which
ore never found in Lycopodiaccae ; and, secondly,
the latter have no vascular sheath surroundinij
pith, which is a sure sign of a dicotyledonous
structure, and quite at variance with the plan
upon which Lycopodiacese are organized. In Ly-
copodium rigidum the axis of the stem consists of a
bundle of five or six large spiral vessels, sur
rounded by four or five layers of smaller ones ;

53

on the outside of tliis is a rather compact layer of
cellular substance, which is connected by very
lax cellules with the cortical integument, which
is again more compact ; the same structure exists
in Lycopodium cernuum ; and Mr. Witham repre-
sents a nearly similar arrangement of parts in
Lycopodium clavaturn. Not a trace of pith, or of
the preparation for it, can be found.

We may, therefore, conclude that Lepidoden-
dron was intermediate between Coniferae and
Lycopodiacese, constituting the type of a kind of
structure now extinct. To Botanists, this disco-
very is of very high interest, as it proves that those
systematists are right who contend for the possi-
bility of certain chasms now existing between the
gradations of organization, being caused by the
extinction of genera, or even of whole orders ;
the existence of which was necessary to complete
the harmony which it is believed originally existed
in the structure of all parts of the Vegetable king-
dom. By means of Lepidodendron, a better passage
is established from Flowering to Flowerless Plants,
than by either Equisetum or Cycas, or any other
known genus.

'2 NaHirid Sizf

100 & 101

SPHEN()V>TERIS CRENATA,

AND

SCHIZOPTERIS ADNASCENS

This very remarkable fossil was found in the
shale of the Whitehaven Coalfield, from which it
has been obligingly communicated to us by Mr.
Williamson Peile.

It is evidently formed by the association of
two distinct plants ; one of which is a fern,
around the stem of which another plant, possibly
a fern also, has twisted itself. They are of to-
tally different structure, and require to be described
separately.

SpHENOPTERIS CRENATA.

By this name we would designate the principal
fern in the accompanying plates. It was appa-
rently a plant with a tripinnated leaf, the ultimate

VOL. u. E

58

segments of which had a narrow lanceolate taper-
ing outline, and a regularly crenated or obtusely
lobed margin; these segments adhered to the
rachis by the whole of their base, and did not
exceed two and a half lines in length at that part;
towards the point they became gradually smaller
till they were reduced to a single lobe. Plate 100,
represents it half the natural size, and Plate 101,
its full size.

In the specimens we have examined, the veins
are totally destroyed, except a faint trace of a
midrib, which passes from the base to the apex of
each segment; of lateral veins no indication can
be found.

We have referred it to the genus Sphenopteris,
chiefly on account of its general resemblance to
S. Dubuissonis, from which it is distinguished by
its smaller size, and the entire crenatures, or lobes
of its segments.

SCHIZOPTERIS ADNASCENS.

To the obscure genus Schizopteris, we refer the
plant that is twisted round the stem of what we
have just described. Up to the present time, no
authentic figure has appeared of the genus which
M. Adolphe Brongniart has thus designated ; but
we presume the - Filicitts crispus'' of Gerraar and

59

Kaulfuss, is one species ; and, if so, this must be
another.

It may be conjectured to have been of the
nature of some of the Lygodia, or rather Hyme-
nophylla; and that the deeply lobed bodies,
of which the impressions are left, were the
leaves. They were palmated and divided into a
number of narrow segments, which sub-divided
into two or more commonly three lobes, which
were either entire, or forked, and always sharp
pointed. No trace of veins can be discovered,
unless the delicate striae with which the whole
surface of the leaf is covered, be considered such.

In whatever way we look at this fossil, it cannot
but be considered important, as indicating a cli-
mate of tropical character. The only recent ferns
to which the Schizopteris can be compared, are
tropical, or nearly so ; but we have not, as far as
we know any modern instance of one fern twisting
round another^ although it is possible to conceive
that such a thing might happen with such plants as
Lygodium. If it did happen, it is at least certain,
that the growth of the climbing plant must have
been as rapid as that of the species to which it is
supposed to have been similar ; and that its vege-
tation must have been stimulated by a climate ex-
tremely different from that of Great Britain, at the
present day. For it must be remarked, that, in
this country, a few leaves closely collected round an

E 2

CO

exceedingly short stem are all that one season is
able to produce, while, in the case of the Schizop-
teris, not only must a considerable number of
leaves, but also a great extent of stem, have been
produced in that period.

102

PTEROPHYLLUM PECTEN.

Cycadites Ptcteii. Phillips^ s Yorkshire,

From the rich bed of fossil plants in the Oolitic
formation of Gristhorpe Bay,* near Scarborough;
for the communication of which, we are obliged
to Mr. W. Williamson, jun.

It appears to have been a species of Cycadeous
plant, as far as can be made out from the remains
that have been discovered. We refer it to the
genus Pterophyllum, because it appears to have
more relation to that than to any other ; but it is
necessary that the technical character of that genus

* We are under obligation to our excellent friend and cor-
respondent, Dr. Murray, of Scarborough, for many interesting
specimens of the fossils found in the rich deposit of Gristhorpe
Bay. His fine collection from that locality, has frequently
been of essential service to us.

E 3

62

should not be made to depend upon the form of its
pinnae, hut upon its veins being all of the same size,
and the segments of the leaves attached to the
midrib by their whole base.

We have nothing recent to compare it with. Mr.
Williamson's account of it is as follows: — ** The
midrib of this elegant little plant is about one-
eighth of an inch in width, tapering gradually,
and is terminated by a small blunted segment.
There are some traces of longitudinal striae upon
it, but so small, as to be nearly imperceptible.
The segments are extremely regular, placed alter-
nately, and thickly covered with very fine parallel
veins ; T think they are simple, but being very
indistinct, I cannot be certain."

103

CTENIS FALGATA.

Cycadites sulcicaulis. Phillips's Yorkshire.

From Gristhorpe Bay.

To Mr. Williamson we are again indebted for
our knowledge of this curious plant, upon which
he makes the following remarks : —

'* The stem of this plant is about one third of
an inch in breadth, straight, of an equal width,
and terminated by a lanceolate segment; its sur-
face is covered with longitudinal striae, from
whence Mr. Phillips named it. The leaflets are
numerous, linear, broadest at their base, and
tapering to a narrow pointed apex. The veins
run parallel with the edges, and are frequently
forked, as seen in the magnified portion ; at the
junction of the leaflets to the midrib, the veins
diverge in opposite directions, as will be observed

E 4

64

set a a. This plant is found, not unfrequently, at
Gristhorpe Bay."

Mr. Phillips refers it to Cycadites, but to this
the forked veins offer, what we fear, is a fatal ob-
jection. It is, however, difficult to say, to what
else it can be better compared, unless to some
ferns, such as Acrostichum alcicorne, in a fertile
state. To this, however, there is an objection ;
for, while A. alckorne evidently owes the peculiar
arrangement of its veins to an extension of a leaf
in which the usual forked structure exists, this fos-
sil can scarcely be considered otherwise than as
representing the general character of all the leaves
of the plant.

It is not impossible that it may have belonged
to some Palm ; but as there is no kind of evidence
that this was so, we prefer placing it in a pro-
visional genus, for which we venture to propose
the name of Ctenis, in reference to its pectinated
character. To this we would refer all leaves hav-
ing the general character of Cycadeae, but with
the veins connected by forks, or transverse bars.

Natural Size.

104

DICTYOPHYLLUM IIUGOSUM.

Pliyllites nei'vulosus. Phillips's Yorkshire, t. VII f. f. 9.

First described by Mr. Phillips, from the upper
sandstone, shale, and coal, of the Oolitic formation,
in Yorkshire. Our drawing was communicated
by Mr. Williamson, jun., to w^hom we have so
often had to express our obligations.

It was evidently a pinnatifid leaf, belonging to
some exogenous plant; but to what recent spe-
cies it may be analogous, it would be idle to in-
quire, so common are its form, and the arrange-
ment of its veins. It might have belonged to a
tropical or a European genus, to a tree or a herb,
to a Sowthistle or a Scrophularia — in short, to
])lants of the most opposite qualities and struc-
ture.

If the genu.s Phyllites, in which Mr. Phillips has

66

placed it, be taken as the receptacle of all sorts of
leaves, it will prove so heterogeneous an assemblage,
as to cease to possess any precise character. Al-
though it seems hopeless to determine the exact
analogy of the greater part of the Monocotyle-
donous and Dicotyledonous plants of vi^hich the
leaves alone can be found ; yet important geolo-
gical objects may be obtained by such a nomen-
clature of leaves as shall not violate natural
affinities, and shall enable them to be accurately
identified. We would, therefore, confine the term
Phyllites to those Monocotyledonous leaves in
which the principal veins converge at both the base
and apex. For doubtful Dicotyledonous leaves of
common reticulated structure, such as this, the
name Dictyophyllum might be advantageously
employed ; and other names might be invented for
leaves having remarkable peculiarities in the
arrangement of their veins.

NEUROPTERIS ARGUTA.

From Gristhorpe Bay, communicated by Mr. W.
Williamson, jun,, with the following description : —

The rachis is nearly smooth, broad at the
base^ and tapering gradually towards the apex.
The pinnae are oblong-lanceolate, pinnated, and
tapering gradually from the base upwards, until
they end in a very narrow point. The leaflets are
oblong, and attached obliquely by a part of their
base, with a slightly wavy margin. The central
vein of the leaflets is very strong near the base,
but disappears before reaching the apex ; the cen-
tral veins are forked, curved, and set obliquely
upon the central one. Towards the upper part of
the leaf, the leaflets become much more acute, and
the leaf itself is terminated by segments, like those
of the lower pinnae."

At first sight, it would seem as if the frag-
ments now represented, were parts of two diff'e-

68

rent species ; but, in a specimen which I have
seen, both form part of the same impression,
proving them to be the two extremities of the
same half."

f'hltt

Notvjral Size

106

PECOPTERIS INSIGNIS.

Found at Gristhorpe Bay, in a nodule of iron-
stone, by Dr. Murray and Mr. Williamson, sen.,
of Scarborough.

It appears to have been a very beautiful species,
and was, probably, of a larger size than is usual in
the Oolitic formations. Mr. Williamson, jun., to
whom we are indebted for the drawing, describes
the main stalk as being a quarter of an inch wide,
and deeply furrowed in an irregular manner. The
leaflets are about an inch and a half in length, of
a narrow lanceolate figure, set on the rachis by
their whole base. The secondary veins are plant-
ed nearly perpendicularly upon the midrib, and
fork with great uniformity.

There is no published species to which this even
approaches.

I

I

Mcbgnified.

107

PECOPTERIS SERRA

In shale, from the Whitehaven Coal-field, com-
municated by Mr. Williamson Peile. We have
been favoured with fine specimens from the
Natural History Society of Newcastle.

Those we have examined, have very much the
appearance of some modern Pteris, and, probably,
belonged to a plant not very different. All
that remain are fragments of what seem to have
been divisions of a tripinnate leaf of considerable
size, the final segments of which had a long linear
lanceolate figure, with about 20 or more lobes on
each side. These lobes are at the bottom, of an
ovate oblong form, attached by their whole base
to the rachis, a little curved forwards, and very
slightly wavy at the margin. Their veins are
badly preserved ; but it would seem as if there
had been a perfect midrib, upon which forked
veins were planted almost perpendicularly.

JSTaOiral Size.

108

ASTEROPHYLLITES COMOSA.

From the shale of Jarrow Colliery.
This occurs in extremely indistinct impressions,
of which nothing but the outline of the leaves
remains ; they were numerous and regularly verti-
ciUate ; their figure was exceedingly narrow, and
there is no perceptible trace of any kind ofvem.
The stem which bore them has, also, disappeared,
leaving not a vestige even of its surface.

The genus Asterophyllites is so vague, that it will
comprehend any fine-leaved verticillate plants, the
bases of whose leaves do not run into an annular
rim For this reason we refer this fossil to it,
although it is not improbable that it may be essen-
tially different from those we have already de-
scribed under the same generic title. It would be
a bootless inquiry to attempt to discover a modern
analogue ; for so totally destitute of positive infor-
mation are the remains, that five hundred plants

VOL. II.

74

might be named, to all which they would be ex-
tremely similar, and yet, perhaps, essentially dis-
tmct from all.

The three broader linear leaves which seem to
nse from the base of the specimen, have nothing
to do with the species, but are the remains of some
Poacites, which have, evidently, been in contact
with the Asterophyllites itself, at the time it «as
imbedded.

Plate.

f

Magniped.

/ hv HUioKay ir Son.i. London. Jc

h

109

SPHENOPTERIS OBOVATA.

In shale, from the Newcastle Coal-field ; drawn
from a specimen presented for this work by the
late T. Allan, Esq., Lauriston Castle, Edinburgh.

It occurs in small terminal fragments, which
are arranged as if they were the lateral divisions
of a tripinnate leaf. The rachis is, in all cases,
nearly destroyed, nothing of it being left beyond
a deeply sunken furrow. The final pinnae have
an oblong lanceolate figure, and are divided into
about six obovate segments. No midrib can be
found on these segments, nor any other kind of
veins beyond a number of very fine parallel striai
which occasionally fork.

There is no species yet discovered with which
this can possibly be confounded.

Half Size

110

A FOSSIL AQUATIC ROOT.

Myriophyllitest gracilii. Artis, Antediluvian Phytology, t 12.

A rare fossil, found in the low main of Felling
Colliery, whence our specimen was procured ;
and, also, according to Mr. Artis, in El-se-car
Colliery.

It is not noticed, as far as we have discovered,
in M. Adolphe Brongniart's Prodromus ; and we
almost doubt the propriety of publishing it in this
work, because there can be little doubt that it is
one of those remains, the identification of which
can never lead to any useful result. If, indeed, it
were a portion of the stem of a plant, as Mr. Artis
supposed, it would have as great a claim to recep-
tion among the extinct species of the vegetable
kingdom, as any of the others we have published.
But if it is, as we hope to show, nothing but the

VOL. II. G

78

remains of a mere root, then it will be impossible
to refer it to any class, order, genus, or species,
and, consequently, its recognition will be useless
in the identification of strata ; for it, or what will
not be distinguishable from it, may be expected
in any geological formation of whatever age.

We have, however, thought it as well to admit
a figure of the impression, firstly, for the sake of
explaining what we conceive to be its real nature;
and, secondly, because it seems to throw some
light upon the circumstances under which the coal
measures were formed.

If this fossil were the impression of the stem
and leaves of any plant, there are two points of
structure which would certainly be discoverable
in a perfect specimen. In the first place, the
leaves would be of nearly one size and figure
throughout the branch ; and, secondly, they would
be inserted upon the stem with great symmetry
and regularity. As no instance of any departure
from this rule can be adduced among recent plants,
to whatever part of the vegetable kingdom they
may belong, we are justified in considering it,
also, absolute in what regards extinct races ; and,
for physiological reasons, which all botanists under-
stand, the same law is of necessity true of branches;
they also ramify upon a uniform symmetrical plan
from which there can be no real departure. The
subdivisions of this fossil are, on the contrary,
irregular in the highest degree ; no two can be

79

found precisely alike ; they are of many different
sizes ; and they spring from the surface of the
central part in a most confused and crowded
manner ; nothing even approaching to symmetry,
either of form or subdivision, can be detected
among them. The fossil, therefore, consists neither
of branches nor leaves.

It is among roots, and especially those of water
plants that its analogue is to be sought. Irregula-
rity and want of symmetry are the constant
characteristics of roots ; and that not only when
they have to insinuate themselves among earth,
but, also, when they develope in water, or the still
more unresisting medium of air. Let, for example,
the roots of a melon, growing in water, or of any
tree or herb, whose roots have accidentally found
their way into a tank, or wet ditch, be compared
with this, and their identity will be too striking
to be overlooked even by the most careless
observer. We, therefore, give the fossil no name ;
but merely leave its representation as an explana-
tion of its real nature, for the information of those
who had not previously considered the matter.

If, however, its name must be erased from the
species of the Fossil Flora, it is not the less inte-
resting in another point of view. Its presence may
be considered one of the strong arguments de-
rived from the consideration of organic remains, in
favour of the theory that the plants which formed
coal were either deposited where they grew, or at

Q 2

80

least were not floated from any considerable dis-
tance. It is well known that however capable
the stems of plants may be of resisting the action of
water, young roots, and especially those of aqua-
tic plants, are so brittle, that but little violence is
required to break them in pieces ; and if they are
exposed for any considerable time to the action of
a body of agitated water, they would be totally
destroyed. This, on the contrary, is so nearly per-
fect, that we may reasonably conclude that it had
suffered but little disturbance before it was im-
bedded in the shale in which its remains have now,
after so many thousand ages, been discovered.

Ill

PINNULARIA CAPILLACEA.

From the Leebotwood coal pit, whence specimens
have been communicated by Professor Buckland.

It occurs in small fragments consisting of a
linear central part or axis, from which at regular
distances, on opposite sides, spring capillary ap-
pendages divided in a pinnated manner. The
segments of these appendages, exhibit no trace
whatever of leaves, nor in fact any appearance
except that of very narrow dark lines, placed
either in opposition or alternately. At the base
of each opposite pair of appendages the central
part is slightly tumid.

The kind of considerations that lead us to reject
the last subject from the list of fossil species, in-
duces us to add this to the number already de-
scribed, for it will be found to possess all the cha-
racters which we have shewn to indicate stems and
leaves. What we have called the central part we
consider the stem, and the appendages leaves ;

G 3

leaves, however, which it may be sup[)osed were
submersed, if their thinness and want of apparent
veins are taken into account.

Had this, instead of the last, been called Myr 'io-
phyllites, nothing could have been objected to the
name ; for it is so like the submersed part of My-
riophyllum spicaium, or rather of some of the Indian
and South American species of the genus, even to
the slight swelling of the stem at the insertion of
the leaves, that we do not see how any botanist
could prove them to be even different. Neverthe-
less, as we are quite sensible of the danger of
speaking with confidence as to the certainty of
such identifications, founded merely upon similarity
in external appearance, and especially as the name
Myriophyllites has already been applied to a
totally different fossil, we prefer coining a new
and unexceptionable generic title, which may in-
clude any similar remains that shall hereafter be
discovered.

From an observation of Count Sternberg in
figuring the aquatic leaves of Myriophyllum, it ap-
pears as if he expected that the fossil genus Sphe-
nophyllum might produce such ; it is more probable
that Annularia and Aster ophyllites consist of the
aerial portions of plants whose submersed parts are
referable to Pinnularia ; but this is, in the present
state of our knowledge, mere conjecture.

112

LEPIDODENDRON STERNBERGII.

Lepidodendrou Sternbergii. Supra, vol. 1. t. 4.

The difficulty of determining the species of
Lepidodendron, with anything like accuracy, seems
wholly insurmountable, until we shall have more
positive evidence as to the manner in which the
scars of the leaves were changed in appearance by
the age of a specimen. For this reason we shall
figure whatever illustrative cases we may meet
with, whether they belong to species already de-
scribed in this work, or not.

Among the plates of Count Sternberg, is one
that represents four states, of what he calls Lepi-
dodendron diclwtomum, of which one appears to M.
Adolphe Brongniart, altogether different from the
other three. The single figure is supposed to
represent a species already published at tab. 4, of
this work, under the name of L. Sternbergii ; and

G 4

84

the other three are referred to a doubtful species,
thought to be even a distinct genus, called, L.
laricinum ; to this our L. dilataturriy tab. 7, fig. 2,
approaches very nearly.

The plant now published, is, we presume, the
L. Ia7^icinum, It differs from L. Sternbergii, only in
the more truly rhomboidal figure of the scars of the
young specimens ; and, perhaps, in the greater
size of the leaves. It shows the different states
in which portions of the same species may be ex-
pected to occur ; and, together with an interesting
series of specimens which has been put into our
hands, by Mr. Prestwich, leads to the opinion
that L. Sternbergii, and L. laricinum, are identical,
as Count Sternberg considered them. Fig. A. and
C are from Hebburn Colliery, and are preserved in
the Museum of Sir John Trevelyan, Bart., of
Wallington ; at ^, the leaves are still adhering to
the stem ; in C, they have all fallen away, the
scars are altered in appearance, and the dimensions
are much augmented. Fig. is from Colebrook
Dale, where it was collected by Mr. Prestwich ;
it shows, in a most satisfactory manner, the origin,
size, and form of the leaves, which are, it can no
longer be doubted, what we call Lepidophylla.

^'■» JSTot' Size

113

LEPIDODENDRON SELAGINOIDES.

Lepidodendron selaginoides. Supra vol. 1. 12.

From the roof of the low main coal seam, Fel-
ling Colliery.

This represents L. selaginoides in a more charac-
teristic state than the figure before published, in
vol. 1. t. 12., and agrees much better with Count
Sternberg's plate. It would seem to have been
a much branched species, with acute short leaves,
closely pressed to the stem ; in which circum-
stance, and its much smaller size, it differs prin-
cipally from L. Sternbergii,

In the specimen before us, the extremities of
the branches have all had their bark and leaves
stripped off by violence; and from the appear-
ance of the remains of the stripped branches^ it
seems quite clear that Lepidodendron had a bark,

86

which separated very freely from the woody cen-
tre of the stem, just as a modern Silver fir might be
deprived of its bark ; and hence that, as we have
already demonstrated, at tab. 98 and 99, the
genus was more nearly related to Coniferse, than
to Lycopodiaceae ; in the latter of which it would
be impracticable to separate the bark from the
woody axis, without much tearing, or even with-
out destroying the branch itself.

114

HIPPURITES GIGANTEA.

From the Jarvow Colliery.

The only specimen we have seen of this remark-
able plant is that from which our figure was taken.
It consists of some fragments of a stem, the joints
of which were three or more inches wide, and very
nearly three inches long. At the articulations
appear the remains of a sheath, divided into a very
great number of tapering teeth, which are appa-
rently three-quarters of an inch long, and about a
line and a half asunder, and present traces of a
central rib. The surface of the stem is, in some
places, perfectly smooth, without the slightest trace
of furrows, or scars ; but in other places it presents
the appearance of transverse wrinkles.

The stem is pressed quite flat, and evidently was

88

capable of falling in pieces at the articulations ;
fragments of several joints being crushed together,
and lying one over the other in different directions.
Beyond these slight and superficial characters the
specimen conveys no information.

Among recent plants we know of nothing to
which it can be approximated, except the genera
Equisetum and Hippuris. With the former it agrees
in the presence of whorls of tapering leaves, arising
from the articulations of a very compressible disar-
ticulating stem ; but, on the other hand, all the
Equiseta have a stem ploughed with deep furrows,
and their leaves combined into a sheath much
longer than themselves ; characters of which no
trace can be discovered here.

Hippuris consists of soft-stemmed marsh plants,
with narrow verticillate leaves, and the surface of
their stem is smooth ; but the stem does not readily
disarticulate, and is always exceedingly small when
compared with such remains as that before us.
We find the average of our specimens of Hippui^is
vulgaris to be fourteen inches high, or about seventy
times higher than the diameter of their stem ; if
this fossil were allied to Hippuris, and grew in the
same proportions, it must have been nearly eighteen
feet in height.

If verbal distinctions were alone consulted, this
plant might be referred to the fossil genus Astero-
phyllites, an heterogenous assemblage of all plants
with narrow uhorled leaves, seated on a slender

89

stem ; but it is incredible that it can have been
really allied to such species whatever they were.
The whole aspect of the specimens, the different
direction of the leaves, and the size of the stem, in
the subject of these observations, forbid our refer-
ring it to that genus.

A little known plant, called Phyllotheca Australis,
found in the coal of New South Wales, is described
by M. Adolphe Brongniart, as consisting of simple,
straight, articulated stems, surrounded at intervals
with sheaths pressed close to the stem, as in Equi-
setu?n, but terminated by long linear leaves, which
stand in the place of the short teeth of the sheath
of Equisetum, We have ascertained, from the
examination of specimens, communicated by Pro-
fessor Buckland, that in some respects M. Brong-
niart's description of Phyllotheca is inaccurate, and
that the leaves, instead of springing from the edge
of a sheath, arise immediately from the stem, as in
the fossil under consideration ; so that the two
would appear to be nearly allied. But in addition
to the whorl of distinct leaves in Phyllotheca there
is a sheath originating within them, and closely
embracing the stem, to which it gives the appear-
ance of the barren shoot of an Equisetum, with
its whorls of slender branches on the outside
of a toothed sheath. Nothing like this remarkable
structure occurs in the plant before us.

Upon the whole, we think it indispensible that
it should be considered the type of an entirely dis-

90

tinct genus of fossil plants ; and as it resembles
Hippuris, as much as it can be said to resemble
anything now living, the name Hippurites will, per-
haps, be considered not inapplicable.

115

SPHENOPTERIS ADIANTOIDES.

From Jarrow Colliery.

This fine species appears to be undescribed. It
approaches to the Sph. obtusiloba and trifoliolata,
in some respects, but it is twice their size, and
different in the form of the leaflets.

It was a species with a flexuose, furrowed, slender
stalk, whence, at intervals of about three inches,
diverged branches, of which the lower were from
five to six inches long, and those near the upper
end about two inches long. Each of the lower
branches was subdivided into branchlets^ arising
regularly, in a pinnated manner, at intervals of
about an inch. The branchlets themselves were
pinnated, and bore from three to seven leaflets of
a rounded wedge-shaped figure, rather dilated at
the upper end, and tapering gradually into a very
short slender stalk. Towards the upper end of
the leaf, the leaflets, instead of being distinct

92

and forming trifoliate or pinnated branchlets, run
together, and become three or five lobed ; and this
happens not only near the extremity of the leaf,
but also towards the middle and base^ giving an
irregular and unsymmetrical air to the whole ; the
circumstance does not occur, we believe, in recent
ferns, but we have noticed indications of it in other
specimens of fossil ones.

In a specimen of another species now before us,
there are two branches that set off from nearly oppo-
site sides of the stalky a few inches below the point of
the leaf ; of these branches, that on the right hand
has all its divisions three-lobed, while the divisions
of the left hand are pinnated, with from five to
seven leaflets.

That this plant was very nearly allied to some
of the Adiantums, resembling our native A. Capil-
lus Veneris, can hardly be doubted ; but, as usual,
all attempts at identification have been unsuccess-
ful. The nearest approach to it with which we
are acquainted, is in the common Adiantum of
Chile, which is probably the A, concirmum of Hum-
boldt and Bonpland; but that species differs in
having longer and slenderer stalks to the leaflets,
which are also lobed and crenated.

Half Size

116

MEGAPHYTON APPIIOXIMATUM.

From the roof of the high main coal at Jarrow.

Among the many singular characters that seem
peculiar to the Coal Flora, is that of producing
trees, the branches of which do not grow all round
the stem, as in most modern species, but spring
up in parallel lines, so that the scar of one leaf
is exactly over that which preceded it, and below
that which succeeded. This regular superposition
of leaves, which is known in only a few succulent
plants of the present day, must have been, in the
ages when coal plants flourished, a very common
occurrence ; we find it in Bothrodendron^ in Uloden-
droriy in this genus, and in all the species of Sigil-
laria; a proportion that is remarkably large as com-
pared with the whole vegetation of the same period.
If we exclude ferns, we shall find that about eighty
species of Arborescent Dicotyledonous Coal plants
have been met with, of which nearly half are Lepi-

VOL. M. H

94

dodendra, or extinct ComfercE, and the remaining
half consists entirely of species having the character
of their leaves grow^ing in parallel series.

The species now represented is an additional in-
stance of the same kind of structure. Its remains
consist of broken stems, which had a dotted,
roughish bark, under which appears a surface,
ploughed with irregular twisted furrows, which
intercept each other without order. On one side
of the stem grew leaves, that must have been of
very considerable size, if we are to judge by the
breadth of the scars they have left behind them.
In the middle of the scars are deep discoloured
impressions, resembling two parallel horse shoes,
( (7, a,) which it may be presumed indicate the
figure of the woody system of the leaf stalk.
Beyond this nothing can be learned. From such
materials, it would be useless to build any theory
of the original nature of the plant, especially a&
we have no recent species with which to compare
it. The large size of the impressions, which are
thought to indicate the woody system of the
leaf-stalks, recals tree ferns to the mind, but
neither the arrangement of the leaves, nor the
surface of the stem, appears to favour the idea that
this can have been even related to the Fern Tribe.

The whole stem of this plant was extracted from
the shale, and showed that there were only two rows
of scars running up opposite sides of the stem.

MEGAPHYTON DISTANS.

Megaphyton frondosum. Artis Antidiluv. phytol. t. 20.

From the shale above the low main coal seaiA
at Felling Colliery.

It was upon such remains as this that Mr. Artis
formed the genus Megaphyton, describing it as
having an arborescent, simple stem, furrowed lon-
gitudinally, with a coarsely fibrous surface. His
specimen was larger, and, in some respects, more
perfect than this, but the form of the scars of the
leaves was less distinctly defined. It is also cer-
tain, that the stem is not furrowed, but, like the
last, has simply two rows of scars on opposite sides
of the stem.

Of the near relation of this species to the last,
H 2

96

whatever the nature of the last may have been,
admits of no doubt. It differs, however, specifi-
cally in the form of the scars, which do not present
the figure of a double horseshoe in the middle,
but has only one simple curve (a^ a, a,) which
reaches from one side to the other of the scar.

For what reason Mr. Artis called this fron-
dosum he does not state, but as the leaves are
unknown, and as they would probably, if dis-
covered, be found to be of a similar nature in both
species, we trust we shall be pardoned for altering
the specific name.

M. Adolphe Brongniart does not notice the
genus Alegaph]/ ton ; we are, therefore, ignorant of
his ideas as to its analogy. Until something more
shall be discovered concerning it, the character by
which it will be known must be the horseshoe
figure of the scars^ arranged in parallel rows. In a
classification of that part of the Coal Flora which
contains such things, the genera will be the follow-
ing;—

* Leaves or branches^ placed one above the other,
in parallel rows.

1. SiGiLLARiA. Stem furrowed. Scars of leaves
small, round, much narrower than the ridges of
the stem.

2. Favularia. Stem furrowed. Scars of
leaves small^ square, as broad as the ridges of the
stem.

3- Megaphyton. Stem not furrowed, dotted.

97

Scars of leaves very large, of a horse shoe figure,

much narrower than the ridges.

4. BoTHRODENDRON. Stem not furrowed,

covered with dots. Scars of cones, obliquely
oval.

5. Ulodendron. Stem not furrowed, covered
with rhomboidal marks. Scars of cones circular.

I

118

LEPIDODENDRON ELEGANS.

Lepidodendron lycopodioides. Stemb, vers. fasc. 2, p. 31,
16,/. 1,2, 4.

Lycopodiolithes elegans. lb. Tent, Fl. primord. viii.
Lepidodendron elegans. Ad, Brong. Prodr, p. 85.

From Felling Colliery.

Our beautiful specimens of this species consist
of remarkably well preserved casts of a large stem
and several branches still attached to it. The scars
had the acute and regular rhomboidal form of those
of L, Sternbergii, to which this seems to be nearly
allied. It differs in its leaves being much smaller
and more delicate, and in the plant having had
more slender and graceful shoots. In both species
the leaves curve away from the stem, by which
circumstance they are essentially distinguished
from L. sdaginoideSy whose leaves are closely
pressed to the stem.

100

We are unable to point out any satisfactory
marks by which the old stems of L, Sternbergii
and elegans can be distinguished, unless it be the
greater breadth of the scars of the former species ;
a character which we fear will be found too inde-
finite to be applied with much certainty.

So much has now been said of the genus Lepi-
dodendron in this work, and so very imperfect an
idea is, we suspect, entertained of the appearance
of those recent coniferous plants to which it is
compared, that we shall endeavour to complete
the illustration of the genus, as far as it is in our
power, by devoting our next plate to the represen-
tation of some of those existing species which have
the greatest apparent relation to it, and which are
unknown in Europe, except in the Herbaria of
Botanists. It will be seen how imperfect the ideas
of those must be, who have no other notion of
coniferous plants than what can be drawn from
the pines and firs of European woods and gardens.

119

PECOPTERIS PROPINQU

For the drawing and account of this, of which
we have seen no specimen, we are indebted to our
indefatigable correspondent, Mr. William Wil-
liamson, Jun. He says,

At first sight, this plant appears to be the
same as the Pecopteris Polypodioides, figured in
a former number, but on closer examination, the
outer edges of the segments are found to be undu-
lated ; in the centre of each undulation being
placed the sorus, or mass of fructification. From
the middle of the segments, veins or nerves strike
out, in rather an oblique direction, which are bifur-
cated ; one point extending to the sorus, and the
other in an opposite direction ; both being again
bifurcated before they reach the outer margin.
Although they vary considerably, I have found
this difference in the arrangement of the veins to
be a strong distinction between the smooth and
undulated edged species ; especially by an exami-

VOL. II. I

102

nation of tlie specimens in the choice collection of
Dr. Murray, which is always open for the benefit
of science. Sometimes one point appears to pass
in a single line through the sorus, and the other is
twice, or thrice branched, but some part of the
nerve always extending to the sorus. There is so
little of the stem remaining, that I have been unable
to discover any peculiar characters ; but in the seg-
ments, the black carbonaceous matter is well pre-
served. When a fragment of shale containing one
of these plants is split, the black substance forming
the sori and midribs, adheres to the opposite side
to the one bearing the impression, which occasions
the white spots. This specimen was found by my
father in Gristhorpe Bay,"

J/afural Size.

C

PECOPTERIS UNDANS:

Of this we have seen no specimens. Mr. Wil-
liamson, Jun. has communicated the following
memorandum with the drawing we now publish.

This is one of the most curious plants I
have seen found in this neighbourhood. The
stem runs in a zigzag manner, and has a line
down each side like a Neuropteris. The seg-
ments are about two-thirds of an inch long, and
rather more than one-eighth in breadth, having a
strong midrib which disappears at the apex. In
endeavouring to trace the veins, I accidentally-
destroyed a portion of the black carbonaceous
matter ; which brought a very singular character
to light : a. represents the plant as it lay in the stone,
shewing the upper surface which was curiously
undulated ; when this part was removed, it left
traces of the under surface upon the matrix, with
two rows of minute sori in the hollow of each un-
dulation, running from the midrib to the sinus of

I 2

104

the segments, as represented ^tfig* c. This will be
the more intelligible if you consider b. to be an
imaginary view of a horizontal section parallel
with the midrib, cutting through three of the un-
dulations, and shewing the position of the sori in
the hollows."

Not having seen this plant we are ignorant
whether its veins follow the lines of sori, or are
otherwise arranged ; we therefore place the plant
in Pecopteris with which it agrees in habit.

It is from the rich bed of Oolitic plants in Gris-
thorpe Bay.

i

? il

121

SOLENITES MURRAYANA.

Flabellaria viminea. Phillips Geol. Yorks» with a Jigure.

We have been favoured by Dr. Murray, with the
following note upon this fossil.

The plant now sent is from the rich deposit of
Gristhorpe Bay, near Scarborough, occurring in the
shale of the upper sandstone, belonging to the
Oolitic formation ; and is so slightly mineralized
as to reidiva. flexibility , and even in a certain degree
combustibiliti/. The plant appears to me, most ana-
logous to a Fern, and to the genus Isoetes, to which
it is allied by its habit, by the closely matted state
of the leaves, by the half flattened structure of those
leaves, and by the absence of every trace of leaf-
sheaths, or fistular and jointed stems which might
have referred it to Graminese. Still it can hardly
be our Isoetes lacustris.

By the bye, I have detected in several of our
fossil Oolitic vegetables as slightly mineralised in

106

that now sent, some of the vegetable principles,
carbon, resin, and tannin."

Upon examining the specimens we found them
to consist of very narrow linear leaves, apparently
arising from a tufted base, and either adhering
loosely to their matrix, as represented at jig. A,
and leaving a faint impression behind when sepa-
rated, or collected into firm flexible masses, having
little or no adhesion to the mud in which they were
imbedded. They were opaque, slightly but not
very regularly striated, and taper-pointed, as seen
at the magnified figure at B. Beyond this striated
appearance nothing could be observed of their or-
ganization to confirm or invalidate Dr. Murray's
suspicion that they were related to Isoetes.

Considering, however, their flexible state, it
occurred to us, that if it were possible to separate
the tissue from the carbonaceous matter, by some
powerful solvent, the transparency of the specimens
might be restored and some insight obtained into
their anatomical structure. Accordingly, upon
plunging them into boiling nitric acid, in a few
moments a dark crust peeled away in flakes, and
presently the centre part became amber coloured
and transparent ; when washed and placed beneath
a microscope it was found that all the foreign
matter, which had rendered the specimen opaque,
was separated, and that the parts were become
little less conspicuous than in a fresh specimen.
The leaves had become inflated with air, collected

107

into spaces of unequal size, as shewn at the mag-
nified figures C and D ; a transverse section
of them formed an oval, acute at both ends, no
traces of streaks were left, and the sides were evi-
dently composed of prismatical cellular tissue, as
shewn at jK, to which internally some soft spongy
matter adhered, which was readily removed with
the end of a dissecting knife, or by frequent brush-
ing with a camel's hair pencil. Not the slightest
trace could be found of veins or of markings in
any way analogous to them.

The recent plants with which this could be com-
pared, besides Isoetes, are chiefly Pilulariay Grasses,
CyperacecBj and certain Rushes,

From the three latter it differs in the absence of
all trace of veins, which, as they constitute the
hardest part of the tissue, might be expected to be
the longest preserved in a fossil state, and the most
capable of resisting the action of nitric acid ; cer-
tain species, both of Isolepis and of Juncus, have
indeed the centre of their leaves filled with a spongy
matter, and some of them have the form which
appears to have existed in this fossil ; but in all
cases the exterior coat of their leaf consists of hard
cellular tissue, connecting still harder parallel sim-
ple veins. Therefore, it is not with them that we
are to look for an analogy.

The leaves of both Isoetes and Pilularia, are des-
titute of veins, and their form, as well as the cellu-
lar tissue constituting the shell of their fistular

108

leaves, is something like those of the fossil. But in the
first place, they are divided internally into distinct
rows of air-cells, Isoetes into four, and Pilularia
into five or six ; secondly, those air-cells are cut
off from each other by transverse partitions, which
give the leaves, when viewed by transmitted light,
their well known barred appearance ; nothing of
this sort can be found in the fossil, unless the striae
seen on it before exposure to nitric acid, which
agree very well with what one finds in Pilularia,
should be considered as traces of the edges of the
rows of air-cells, and the manner in which air col-
lects in the fossil after having been acted upon by
the acid, be thought to indicate the existence of
transverse partitions. As the partitions in the in-
side of the leaves of Isoetes and Pilularia, both those
which are parallel with the leaf, and those which
are transverse to it, are naturally of a soft spongy
nature, they may certainly have been decayed be-
fore the plant was finally imbedded, and in that
case would be undiscernible now. Of this, how-
ever, we must observe there is no evidence.

But supposing that this fossil is admitted as more
nearly allied to Isoetes and Pilularia, than to any
thing else now known, which we confess appears
to be the fact; it must nevertheless be remarked, that
it was distinct as to species at least ; for in Isoetes the
leaves are channelled, or concave and convex, with
a sharp keel, and in Pilularia they are almost
cylindrical, with the u})per side deeply grooved,

ff

109

and a tliickish edge on each side of the groove,
wliile in the fossil they seem to be what is called
aucipital, that is to say, doubly convex with two
sharp edges.

We therefore distinguish it as a peculiar genus,
for which the name Solenites has been suggested,
by its fistular structure. Dr. Murray is fully en-
titled to have it bear his name in addition, in com-
memoration of his having been both the discoverer
of the fossil, and the determiner of its affinity.

A. represents Solenites Murrayana as attached
to a mass of mud ; is one of the leaves broken
off near the point, and magnified ; C. a portion of
the same, as inflated after having been steeped in
boiling nitric acid ; D. the same, viewed from the
edge ; and JS. a highly magnified view of the tissue.

Since the above was written, we have received
a communication upon the same subject from Mr.
Williamson, Jun., who informs us that the plant
is common at Gristhorpe, covering the surface of
the seams of shale, in every direction. A draw-
ing, which this gentleman has sent us, represents
a sort of knob from which the leaves originate.
Tliis, so far as it shews any thing, is conformable
to the structure of Isoetes.

122

PECOPTERIS LACINJATA.

From the coal mine at Jarrow, where it has only
occurred in fragments such as are here repre-
sented. ^- ^

They retain no trace of veins, nor of any other
structure that can lead to a comparison of them
with other ferns, except their outline ; from which
we conjecture that the species is closely allied to
Mr. Brongniart^s Pecopteris muricata, from which
in fact it appears to differ principally in having
the segments of the pinnules usually cut into from
3 to 5 lobes, instead of being entire. The letter-
press of P. muricata not having yet reached this
country, we are not acquainted with the degree of
variation to which that species is subject ; it may
almost be doubted whether this ought to be consi-
dered any thing more than a strongly-marked va-
riety of it.

i

123

SPHENOPTERIS MULTIFIDA.

Communicated from the coal measures near
Oldham, by Mr. Francis Looney of Manchester.

It appears to have been a remarkably delicate
Fern, very much like some of the tropical species of
Hymenophyllum or Trichomanes ; but whether this
is a portion only of a broad leaf, or the principal
part of a small one, it is difficult to judge. From
the slender character of the rachis we should be
disposed to imagine that it was of the latter nature.

The rachis was extremely narrow and slender,
slightly wavy, and triply pinnated, the divisions of
it becoming more and more delicate, till the last
are almost capillary. Each of the first lateral
divisions of the leaf has a broadly ovate tapering
outline, and at its lower part extends beyond those
which are next it ; their sub-divisions have the
same outline, and are in like manner so close
together, as to overlie each other near their base ;

114

the pinnules are deeply pinnatifid, have an ovate
figure, and their lobes are cut near their base into
five, but near their point into three linear, oblong,
acute segments, which are sometimes two-lobed. No
trace of veins is left upon any part of the specimen.

The species to which this approaches most nearly
are aS^. elegans, gracilis, and tenella. Of these the
latter, according to Mrs. Taylor's figure in Brong-
niart's Histoire des Vegetaux Fossiles, is only twice
pinnated, and the segments of its pinnules are re-
presented as all entire ; we must, however, remark
that a comparison of specimens of the two species
appears absolutely necessary in order to establish
any certain distinction between them. Sp. elegans
is twice or thrice as large a plant, with obtuse lobes
to its pinnules ; and Sp, gracilis (from which we
cannot distinguish Sp. Dubuissonis) , has the lobes
of the pinnules, both shorter and broader, and only
slightly three-toothed.

d^7

124

ASTEROPHYLLITES EQUISETIFORMIS.

Casuarinites equisetiformis, ^c/i/o^/i. Flora der Vorwelt.t. l.f,
1. t. 2./. 3.

Bornia eqiiisetiformis, Sicmb. Tent. Fl. Prim. p. 28.
Asterophyllites equisetiformis, Ad. Brongn. prodr, p, 169-

First described by Von Schlotheim from the
coal measures of Manebach and Mandfleck ; re-
cently communicated to us by Mr. Conway from
the mines of Blackwood in Monmouthshire.

Its stem appears, from the account of Von Schlo-
theim to vary in thickness from a line and half to
half an inch, according to its age. It must, there-
fore, have been a plant of considerable size, of which
the portions now figured are mere fragments.

We have seen no specimen ; but it appears to
be of the same nature as A. longifolia and A. gall-
oides already figured in this work.

IIG

Like those species it has been considered ana-
logous to Hippuris, or plants of that nature ; but
we perceive no evidence of this beyond the verti-
cillate leaves, which prove absolutely nothing, ex-
cept that the plant was of the Dicotyledonous or
Exogenous class.

It is very much to be desired that specimens of
this should be foimd in fructification ; for until
they have been procured it would be useless to
speculate upon its modern analogies.

S Hens low. del

125

ZAMIA MACROCEPHALA.

For our knowledge of these singularly well pre-
served remains of what appears to have been the
cone of a Zamia, we are indebted to Professor
Henslow, who most obligingly furnished us with
the accompanying drawing, and the following
notes upon it.

This cone was discovered in cleaning out a
pond about four miles from Deal, on the road to
Canterbury. From the general appearance of the
material of which it is composed, I should think it
must have come originally from the green sand-
stone formation, and have been accidentally trans-
ported to the spot where it was found. The pos-

VOL. II. K

118

sessor, the Rev. C. Yate, Fellow of St. John s
College, Cambridge, can give me no further ac-
count. Upon comparing it with the figure of a
cone of Zamia in Richard's Coniferes and Cyca-
dees," plate 26, it appears to bear a close resem-
blance to it in structure, excepting that the scales
are longer in the fossil, and curve upwards,
in the manner represented in the accompanying
sketch.

I suspect that the cavity which

exhibits the internal structure, and

shews us so well the arrano-ement of

the seeds, must have existed whilst

the specimen was still recent, and

that it has not been made since it

was found . Perhaps it resulted from

the attacks of some preadamite wood-
pecker. The circumstances which

strike me most in this structure,

are the slender axis (when com-
pared with Richard's fig.), and the
inclination of the seeds consequent
on the form of the scales. The dia-
grams are intended to elucidate the position of the
scales upon the cone, according to Braun's views.*

♦ See an explanation of these views in the forthcoming Report of
the British Association for the advancement of science for the year
1833.

119

The scales on the diagram to the left (above) are
so numbered as to indicate the spiral line which
winds round the axis, and on which the scales are
arranged in succession, and as the thirtieth scale
comes vertically over the first, after eleven re-
volutions of the spiral, the divergence is equal to
- of a circle : that is to say, the scale No. 2, is — of

29 '29

360% or somewhat more than 136% angular distance,
from scale No. 1, and so on of the rest, referring
all the coils of the spiral to a plane perpendicular
to the axis. The figure below to the right indi-
cates the position of the scales on such an hypo-
thesis."

To these excellent remarks we can have nothing
to add except by way of illustration.

The specimen is in light yellowish grey sand-
stone, which takes a ferruginous appearance when
moistened ; it is four inches and three-quarters long,
and almost two and a quarter in diameter. At its
upper end the scales contract in size, become irre-
gular in outline, and finally surround a small irre-
gular hexagon. At its lower end is a shallow hole
rather more than a quarter of an inch in diameter,
from which the stalk was pulled out ; allowing for
the usual quantity of woody matter forming a sheath
round the axis of a cone of this sort, and comparing
it with the depth from the surface of the cone to
that part of the centre which is actually laid bare,
it would appear that the central part or axis, from

K 2

120

which tlie scales arise, was little less than half an
inch in diameter.

On one side of the specimen near the base is an
opening down to the axis, almost two inches long,
and an inch and half wide ; by means of which we
obtain a distinct view of the internal structure ; it
shews us that the scales curved upwards from the
axis, thickening gradually, as represented in Pro-
fessor Henslow's sketch, towards their point, where
they are flat and hexagonal, but not by any means
peltate. Near the axis, on the left side, are the
cavities left by five ovate seeds, each nearly half
an inch long, which have been removed ; their
pointed ends are next the axis. On the opposite
side are four similar cavities, in one of which is
some appearance of the fragment of a seed ; below
them is a seed in situ, with a small uneven perfo-
ration in its side, and lower still is just visible the
thin edge of another seed ; so that these seeds
would seem to have had an ovate, somewhat com-
pressed figure, and a prominent edge on each side.
In the opinion that this hole was made when the
cone was fresh we entirely concur ; but whether
by a preadamite woodpecker, squirrel, or mouse,
is more than we find evidence to demonstrate.

That it belono-ed to some Zamia seems to be
shewn in every point of its structure, and will be
the more apparent if the fossil is compared with
the following reduced figures of an American Zamia

121

(Jig. A ; divided vertically fig. B), and of one of
the species from Southern Africa, lately named
Encephalartos by Professor Lehmann (fig. C).

122

If Professor Lelimanri's statement be correct, that
the scales of all the American Zamias have a hexa-
gonal apex, and those of all the African Zamias a
rhomboidal apex, this fossil will then be of the form
now peculiar to the new world ; which is not the
least interesting circumstance connected with it.

To the observation by Professor Henslow, that
the scales are longer, and more curved upwards,
than in the figures given by Richard, we may add
that they also are less distinctly peltate ; but these
circumstances can scarcely be considered to offer
any objection to its being a Zamia, all other points
so nearly coinciding. We possess no materials
whatever for determining how far this may be the
case in some of the many modern species that have
not been figured ; but it can hardly be considered
of more than specific importance.

That this may have belonged to the Greensand
formation is likely enough, considering the great
abundance of the leaves of Cycadese in the upper
beds of Oolites, and also that remains of a plant of
similar habit, the Cycadites Nilsoni, has been found
in the lower chalk of Sconen. How different from
its present state must have been that of Europe at
the time when the Greensand was deposited, will
be manifest from the account given by Mr. Ecklon
of the district in which he found the principal part
of the Zamias of South Africa.

They are not met with at Cape Town, where
they would be exposed to the cold winds from the

123

southern polar regions, but first appear far in the
interior of the country, in the land of the CafFers,
where the common Cape Flora of Proteas and
Heaths is replaced by strikingly different races of
plants. They prefer mountainous and wooded, or
bushy country, following the ranges of hills, but
not straggling into the plains. They are generally
met with in rocky places, almost 2000 feet above
the level of the sea, higher than the region of
Mimosas, and surrounded by bushes of arborescent
succulent plants, Rhamnese, Celastrinese, and
shrubby Leguminous species.

^aturaZ Size

126

PECOPTERIS WILLIAMSONIS.

Pecopteris Williamsonis. Ad. Brongn.prodr. p. 57, Hist, des
Vcgetaux Fossiles, vol. I, p. 324, t. 110,/. 1.2.

Found not uncommonly in the upper sandstone
of the Oolitic formation, near Scarborough.

Mr. Adolphe Brongniart has figured a fine
specimen in a barren state ; we are enabled by the
kindness of Mr. Dunn of Scarborough to represent
it in fructification, a state in which it seems to
be not uncommon. -Ifc^

It appears to have been a bipinnated species of
moderate size, with a rachis which is often thicker
than is usual in most Ferns of the same size. Its
pinnae are narrow, long, and placed on the rachis
very obliquely. The pinnules, are oblong, obtuse,
curved slightly upward, attached to the petiole by
their whole base, and separated from each other

\'26

by about half their own diameter ; in a barren
state they have a slender wavy distinct midrib,
from which proceed many very oblique veins,
which are once or twice dichotomous ; in a fertile
state, no veins are to be discovered, but the whole
of the under surface is covered by a multitude of
small projecting circular spots, w^hich it is to be
supposed were the sori, or clusters of fructification.

From the complete manner in which the under
side of the leaf is covered with fructification, it
may be presumed that the elevated circular spots
were thecce, and not indusia of the nature of those in
Aspidium ; for in recent Ferns it is only the genera
with naked thecse, such as Acrostichum in particu-
lar, in which the veins and midrib are completely
concealed by the fructification ; in plants like Aspi-
dium, the midrib at least is distinct, however much
the veins may be hidden. We therefore conjec-
ture that this Pecopteris Williamsonis belonged to
the genus Acrostichum, to which the disposition of
the veins offers no objection.

I

127

VARIOUS RECENT CONlFERiE.

We lately promised to give some views of recent
Coniferse, which might serve to illustrate such
fossils as Botanists refer to that order, although they
have no apparent resemblance to the species with
which the European is familiar.

For this purpose we have selected such as arc
represented in the accompanying plate.

A. Araucaria excelsa, or the Norfolk Island Pine,
serves to shew how difficult it is to decide upon
the identity of the fossil fragments which we occa-
sionally meet with. The left hand figure is a
branch of this plant when it becomes old ; and the
right hand figure is a similar branch produced by
the plant when it is young ; both taken from the
monograph of Mr. Lambert on the genus Pinus.
No one could have suspected that such exceedingly
different objects as these two could merely be
young and old specimens of the same species.

128

B. Cunning hamia sinensis ; illustrates such leaves
as Lepidophyllum ; and may be compared with some
of the broad-leaved Lepidodmdra.

C. Dacrydium cupressinum, a large tree from 50
to 100 feet high, has altogether the appearance of
some of the fossils referred to LycopodiacecB,

Z>. and E, Two undescribed species of Callitris
from Van Diemen's Land, are not unlike some of
the things referred to the genus Fucoides.

128

OTOPTERIS OBTUSA.

We are indebted to the kindness of Professor
Buckland for the drawings from which the accom-
panying plate has been prepared. The upper
fossil is from the Lias at Membury, near Axmin-
ster ; the lower is from the same formation at
Polden Hill, near Bridgewater in Somersetshire.
The specimens themselves we have not seen.

It was probably a simply pinnated plant, with a
thickish petiole. The leaflets were oblong, obtuse,
flat, a little curved forwards into a falcate form,
and auricled at their base, on the side nearest the
point. They were attached to the petiole by that
half of their base, which is not auricled, and were
inserted alternately with each other. Midrib they
had none ; their veins were all of equal size,
originating in the base, curving right and left near
the sides, running straight in the middle, and
forking as much as is necessary to fill the whole

VOL. II. L

130

leaflet with a dense layer of veins. No structure
is visible beyond this.

At first sight it resembles a Fern so closely, that
one would scarcely doubt its being one ; but upon
a closer examination a circumstance will be detected
w^hich will throw some doubt upon the subject.
All recent Ferns, with a pinnated structure have, as
far as we have observed, either a distinct midrib to
each leaflet,or, at least, such an arrangement of
the veins, as gives the appearance of a midrib ; and
we believe it is, in fact, only in Adiantums and the
Hymenophyllous section of recent Ferns, that a
midrib is absent, whether the leaf is pinnated or
not. But here the arrangement of the veins is
such, that not the faintest trace of any thing like a
midrib is discernible.

Even in fossil Ferns, or what are so called, it is
only in the genus Odontopteris that such veins as
those of the fossil before us are characteristic ; but
in that genus the leaves are bipinnated, and the
leaflets grow to the stalk by their whole base, while
in this they adhere by only a portion of their base,
the anterior half being free and auricled.

Our fossil then is not only doubtful as to its
genus, but even as to its afl&nity, for its veins are not
exactly those of Ferns, and its external form is not
exactly that of Odontopteris.

We find, however, a new red sandstone plant,
placed by AdolpheBrongniart in iVcuropteris jlunder
the name of JV. Dufresnoii, with which this accords

131

in its veins and mode of division ; but as we cannot
consider this species a true Neuropteris, for the
reasons we have assigned, and as we are now ac-
quainted with at least three distinct plants, which
agree in the peculiarities just adverted to, we
propose to form them into a new genus, to be called
Otopteris, in allusion to the auricle (ouy) with
which the leaflets are always furnished. — See Tab,
132.

I

Sig 7.

Fi^. 2.

129

STROBILITES BUCKLANDII.

From specimens belonging to Miss Bennett,
the accompanying drawings were prepared for Dr.
Buckland, to whom we are indebted for permission
to publish them in this work.

They appear to have been cones, having a slender
axis (a. Sf h.Jigs. \Sf2), the whole face of which was
covered with processes, which at the only remain-
ing surface of the cone have now the appearance
of scales. The axis is entirely gone, and the speci-
mens themselves are crushed and broken, as if they
had remained in water till they were rotten, and
had then been suddenly exposed to some violent
action, which broke them in pieces.

On the present surface of the fossil nothing can
be traced except the scaly appearance ; but it is to
be observed, that on both specimens the supposed

134

scales curve back from the only end of the cone
which is visible ; on which account we conjecture
that end to have been the base, for if it had been
the apex the scales would rather have converged.
At first sight it would seem as if these scales repre-
sented the true surface of the cone ; but when we
consider the extremely small space which inter-
venes between the axis (a.) and the surface, on the
denuded side, and the length of the organs which
evidently grow on the opposite side, we find our-
selves unable to account for the total disappearance
of corresponding organs on the denuded side,
except upon the supposition that upon that side the
principal part of the cone has been broken away.
It would, therefore, appear as if the scales which
now remain upon the denuded side, are the bases
of bodies, the upper ends of which are left at c and d.

In the fractured parts, about half way between
the axis and the surface of the cone, a number of
lozenge-shaped cups (c. c.) are visible, with their
concavities turned towards the axis ; their margins
have a broken appearance, and were apparently
continuous with the part which actually grew to
the axis. It is to be presumed the cups are the
remains of the apex of the cell of a pericarpium.

The parts next the surface of the cone, forming
the upper end of the supposed pericarpium, are
four-cornered and wedge-shaped, but their points
are so buried in the matrix of the fossil that they
cannot be made out. At places {^d. No. 2.) thin

135

plates seem interposed between these wedge-shaped
bodies, but we find no evidence to show whether
such plates are organic, or mere interpositions of
earthy matter.

From the present state of the cones one might
imagine that they were originally of an oblong
figure ; but if our conjecture, that the apparent sur-
face is not the real surface, be well founded, they
must have been nearly spherical.

Such is all that we can collect from the remains
before us ; scanty as the information is, it seems to
shew that the fossil was of a spheroidal figure, and
consisted of an axis upon which was planted a
number of wedge-shaped, four-cornered, one-celled
pericarpia, the upper end of which was solid, and
the lower gradually thinned away into a base,
which, when the cell was broken off, resembled
a scale. Whether real scales were interposed
between the pericarpia is uncertain.

It does not appear to us that such information is
sufiicient to enable a Botanist to determine the affi-
nity of this fossil satisfactorily. That it was not a
Fir cone, is rendered probable by the ready separa-
tion of the thick four-cornered apex of the pericarpia
from the cell, analogous to which we know nothing
in Coniferce. For even in Araucaria, in which the
seed is very large, and terminated by a broad scale,
to the base of which it adheres (See Foss. Fl. t. 87),
there is no such thickening of the upper end as
we find in the pericarpium of the fossil ; in fact

136

the absence of any distinct trace of a predominance
of scales, is not only against its relationship to the
Fir Tribe, but also to Cycadece and Proteacece.

It is more probable that it was related to some
such order as Pandane(B or Artocarpe(B. The
great objection to the latter is the thickness of the
ends of the pericarpia, and the apparent absence of
bracteal scales. Such objections do not apply to
Pandanece, the fruit of which is spheroidal, and
consists in like manner of pericarpia, often with a
thickened wedge-shaped apex, planted upon an
axis destitute of bracteal scales, and originally
one-celled, although often collected into parcels ;
and it is to this family of recent plants, that we
should be inclined to refer this, if we were obliged
to give a positive opinion. But for the present we
prefer leaving it in the provisional genus Strobilites,
in the hope that the daily multiplying evidence
upon this subject will soon enable us to ascertain
its nature in a more satisfactory manner.

pjnu no

130

CYCLOCLADIA MAJOR.

From the roof of the^ Bensham Coal-seam at
Jarrow Colliery.

Like Bothrodendron this plant has branches
(?) which readily disarticulated with the stem.
All that has been seen of it is in the form of
circular depressions about four-tenths of an inch
in diameter, arranged in whorls. Its leaves, and
the surface of its stem, are quite unknown.
What it may have been it would be useless
under such circumstances even to conjecture ;
but as it appears totally distinct as a genus, from
all published fossils, we have given it a name by
which it may be called. We have another spe-
cimen from the coal measures of what seems to
be a smaller species ( Cyclocladia minor ), the
diameter of whose scars does not exceed five-
twentieths of an inch, but we do not remark any
further difference.

131

SPHENOPTERIS WILLIAMSONIS.

Sphcnopteris digitata. Phillips' Geol. of Yorkshire, p. 147,
t. 8,/. 6, 7.

Sphenopteris Willlamsonis. Ad. Brong. Hist, des Veg. Foss.
vol. \,page 177, /. 49,/^. 6, 7, 8.

The accompanying plate represents finer spe-
cimens of this species, than Mr. Adolphe Brong-
niart has figured. The drawings were commu-
nicated by our indefatigable correspondent,
Mr. Williamson, Jun., from the Oolitic deposit
at Gristhorpe Bay, near Scarborough, where
the species is rare.

The pinnules are narrowly wedge-shaped,
truncated, often two-lobed, and placed in a
somewhat irregular manner ; they often appear
two-parted to their very base, each division
being lobed almost in a fan-shaped manner.

140

Our upper figure differs a little from the lower
in having shorter and more numerously lobed
pinnules, which are moreover sometimes con-
fluent; but as they are otherwise extremely
similar, are found together, and not unfrequently
upon the same stone, we agree with Mr. Wil-
liamson, and Adolphe Brongniart, in considering
them mere varieties of one species.

Like other Sphenophylla this resembles the
modern species of Trichomanes, but no one can
be named with which it is worth comparing it.

132

OTOPTERIS ACUMINATA.

1^

:,Tiear ^

From the shale of Gristhorpe, "Hear Scarbo-
rough, whence our drawing has been commu-
nicated by Mr. Williamson, Jun. The upper
and lower figures are from different plants, but
appear to represent the same species.

This is so very like Otopteris ohtusa, figured
at plate 128, that it would be superfluous to
describe it. In fact, it differs in nothing except
its leaflets being much longer, more taper-
pointed, and acute, instead of being rounded.

Mr. Williamson has remarked to us that this
is in many respects very like Cyclopteris Beanii
(tab. 44, vol. 1) ; and upon reconsidering that
plant, now that we have become acquainted with
this species and O. obtusa, we find it necessary
to abandon the view we took of the structure of
that species, and to consider it a pinnated plant
of the same genus with these. It is not impro-

142

bable that Otopteris will have to be reinforced
with Neuropteris Dufresnoii ; but of this we are
uncertain, having seen no specimens. In the
meanwhile the generic and specific characters
of Otopteris may be stated thus —

OTOPTERIS.

Leaf pinnated. Leaflets originating obliquely
from the side of the leaf-stalk, auricled, attached
by about half their base, destitute of all trace of
midrib. Veins of equal size, very closely a*r-
ranged, diverging from their point of origin,
and dividing dichotomously at an exceedingly
acute angle.

1. Otopteris obtusa. Leaflets narrow, oblong, falcate,
very obtuse. — From the Lias. Plate cxxviii.

2. Otopteris acuminata. Leaflets oblong-lanceolate,
acuminate, sHghdy falcate. — Oolite. Plate cxxxii.

3. Otopteris Beanii. Leaflets roundish-oblong,
somewhat lozenge-shaped, very unequal sided. — Oolite.

Syn. Cyclopteris Beanii. Fossil Flora, vol. 1 , t. 44.

? 4. Otopteris Dufresnoii. Leaflets broadly oblong,
obtuse, scarcely falcate, auricled on the lower side. —
New Red Sandstone.

Syn. Neuropteris Dufresnoii. Ad. Brong. Hist. v. f
p. 246, t. 74, f. 4; and 5?

133

ASTEROPHYLLITES JUBATA.

From the coal measures at Jarrow Colliery.

A thick, blunt, faintly striated, jointed stem,
something like that of a Calamite, covered here
and there with the remains of a thin carbonaceous
layer of what may have been bark, and bearing a
multitude of extremely fine thread-like long pro-
cesses, which it is to be presumed were leaves, are
all that we know of this fossil ; which we place in
the genus Aster ophyllites, simply because it accords
with the verbal character of that heterogeneous
assemblage.

It looks more like a gigantic Equisetum than
any thing modern we are acquainted with, but in
reality it possesses no character which enables a
Botanist to form an opinion about it. All that can
be safely said concerning it is that it is a new form
in the Flora of the Coal measures.

[

\

!

134

PECOPTERIS WHITBIENSIS.

P. Whitbiensis. Ad. BroJig. prodr. p. 51. Hist, des Veg. Foss.
vol. \.p. 321, t. 109,/. 2,3, 4.

fl. P. Nebbensis, id. t9S.f. 3.

This interesting and beautiful plant was found
in a nodule of argillaceous ironstone, from the
lower shale at Cloughton, near Scarborough.
Like most of our Ferns, the stem, which is the
same thickness in its whole extent, has a depres-
sion in its centre, which is also visible on its smaller
branchlets. The leaflets are disposed alternately
in a remarkably regular manner : are of a curved,
falcate form, very acute, and attached by the whole
of the base. Their margins are entire. The mid-
ribs are strong ; rising distinctly from the centre
of each pinna, and reaching nearly to the apex of
the leaflets. The veins are forked, springing a
little obliquely from the midrib. The carbonaceous

VOL. II. M

146

matter of the stems and branchlets is decomposed,
and its situation occupied by the white calcareo-
aluniinous substance so frequent in the iron nodules.
This substance is never found in the shale itself,
but invariably in the ironstone, if accompanied by
vegetable impressions. I believe it has been
described under the head Scarburgite," and
ranked as a mineral. This plant approaches very
near to the Pecopteris insignis (Fossil Flora, t. 106),
and, I think, forms a connecting link between that
plant and P. denticulata (Neuropteris ligata. Fossil
Flora, t. 69). It wants the long leaflets of the
former, and the dentate ones of the latter, but
differs from both in the pinnae being opposite in-
stead of alternate."

The foregoing extract from a letter sent us with
the accompanying drawing, in May last, by Mr.
Williamson, jun., contains all that we are able to
state concerning the structure of this plant. It is,
no doubt, nearly allied to the two species already
referred to, but it is essentially distinguished from
both by the characters correctly pointed out by
Mr. Williamson.

It is more nearly allied to Pecopteris nehhensis
and P. Whitbiensis, especially to the latter. P.
nehhensis, from the oolitic formation of the island
of Bornholm, in the Baltic, as far as can be ascer-
tained from the fragments figured by Brongniart,
difl"ers in nothing except its leaflets being rather
closer, and obtuse instead of taper-pointed ; the

147

veins are represented and described exactly as they
are found in this specimen ; and it appears to us
to be only a slight variety. With regard to P.
Whitbiensis, figured by Brongniart from the lower
oolite of Whitby and Scarborough, the only dif-
ferences we discover between it and our plant con-
sist in the pinnae of that species being sometimes
alternate, and in the veins of the lower leaflets
being twice forked, neither of which was remarked
in Mr. Williamson's specimens. To these differ-
ences, however, we cannot attach any importance,
and we must consider this the same as P, Whit-
hiensisy of which P. nebbensis is a variety.

135

PINUS PRliMiEVA.

For the discovery of this we are indebted to
Gilbert Flesher, Esq. of Towcester, who found one
specimen in the stone pits at Burcott Wood, near
that place, and another, which was presented to the
Marquess of Chandos, in Livingstone stone pits.
Dr. Buckland informs us that the formation belongs
to the Inferior Oolite.

This we regard as the nearest approach to the
modern European form of vegetation in the rocks
of such high antiquity as those of the Oolite ; for
after a careful examination of it in different direc-
tions, we have come to the conclusion that it has
no characters to distinguish it from a modern
Pinus.

It is a concj which at the time of its deposit had
lost its seeds, and had its scales wide apart, like
those of a Scotch Fir cone, which has been lying

150

about for some months exposed to weather. Wet
earthy matter insinuated itself beneath the scales,
filled up all the cavity beneath them, and at the
same time, by moistening them, relaxed their tissue,
and closed them back again, so as to restore the
cone to its original shape. The earthy matter thus
formed plates interposed between the scales, and
when the latter, which we must suppose were
originally decayed at their points, were broken
away by the separation of the cone from its bed,
projected beyond the scales in the form of a hard
earthy border to each scale (fig. A. a a).

The specimen we are describing is nine-tenths
of an inch long, of an oblong regular figure. It is
composed of scales six deep, and six round, the
ends of which are rounded, and have a transverse
lozenge form ; their surface is finely punctured in
consequence of the cellular substance being laid
bare by the rotting away of the cuticle and extreme
parts. Each scale is dilated at its extremity, and
gradually thins away to the lengthened axis
(fi(/. B.) of which no trace remains.

The only points in this description at variance
with the structure of a recent Pine cone, are firstly,
the small size of the fossil : this is botanically of
only specific importance ; and secondly, the rounded
ends of the scales. In most modern Pines the end
of the scales is distinctly and sharply angular ; but
Pinus Strohus has no angles at the extremity of
its scales, and from the worn state of those of the

151

fossil it is most likely that the angles would have
crumbled away had there ever been any.

We therefore consider it a true Pinus. That it
cannot be referred to any other genus of Coniferae,
to which it bears external resemblance, is easily
shewn. Abies, which, in the form of the Larch,
agrees with this in the size of its cones, has scales
without thickened extremities. Taxodium, the
points of whose scales are lozenge-shaped, and
which agrees wdth it in the size of its cones, has no
perceptible axis to its fruit, but all its scales spring
from a central point. Voltzia, which, from its
station in the New Red Sandstone, one would na-
turally compare with it, has all its scales distinctly
3-lobed ; and we may add, that this latter circum-
stance also distinguishes it at once from Alnus,
whose woody cones, when full ripe, are as large as
that of the fossil.

I

I

136

ZAMIA CRASSA.

Communicated by Dr. Buckland from the
Wealden formation at Yarenland, in the Isle of
Wight, where it was found by Mr. John Smith,
by whom it was presented to the Oxford
Museum, along with a great number of very
large bones of Iguanodon from the same locality.

The cones appear to have been something
more than two inches long, but as their base is
lost we cannot be certain of the precise dimen-
sions ; now that they are pressed nearly flat they
are an inch and half across ; they are regularly
oblong, and rounded at the extremity. Their
surface is covered with deep black, rather irre-
gular, transversely lozenge-shaped scales, which
are changed to a brittle carbonaceous matter.
Upon cutting through one of these cones, the
internal structure, although slightly, is still suf-
ficiently retained to shew that there were numer-

VOL. II. N

154

ous seeds lying below the thickened scales at a
considerable distance from a thick axis. These
are shewn at a, a, a, in the lower figure. No-
thing can be made of their relation to the scales,
except that they are placed immediately below
the thickened ends of the latter.

This circumstance disposes of the affinity
of the plant which bore these cones to Coni-
ferae^ for in all genera of that order the seeds are
next the axis of the cone. And the same point
seems to establish their relation to Zamia, to
which genus we see no reason why they should
not be positively referred : especially considering
the existence of other remains of such plants in
rocks of a similar age to that of the Wealden
clay.

137

ABIES OBLONGA.

Communicated by Dr. Buckland, who believes
it to be from the Greensand, near Lyme Regis.
It had been washed out of the cliff and rolled to
a pebble by the waves on the Dresent shore.

The cone is rather more than two inches and
a half long, but was probably longer, for it has
been so worn down by constant friction, that its
very axis is cut into, and the seeds of the lower
part of the cone are laid bare in consequence of the
scales that protected them being ground away.
Under these circumstances it must not be expected
that the external appearance of the fossil is much
like what it was when fresh.

Its scales are very broad, rounded, and quite
thin at the points ; near the axis they are thicker,
and apparently consisted of a woody central plate,
deeply covered with a corky tissue, which gave
way to the pressure of the seeds, forming niches for
their reception.

156

The seeds are so perfectly shewn in a longitu-
dinal section (fig. 2), that not only is their form
ascertained to be oval, and their situation at the
base of the scales, but in one instance their very
embryo may be perceived lying in the midst of
albumen. This has been overlooked by our artist,
but is plainly visible near the base of one of the
halves into which the cone has been cut.

As the position of the seeds near the base of the
scales, in connection with other characters, shews
this to be Coniferous^ and as Ahies is distinguished
from Pinus by the thinness of the ends of the
scales, we have no hesitation about placing this in
the former genus, of w^iich it is the second fossil
species that has been discovered. To the other,
named A. laricoides by Adolphe Brongniart, no
locality is assigned.

That such a genus should exist in the Greensand,
wdll be by no means improbable if the beds at
Titcschen, at Heidelburg, Quedlinburg, and Blank-
enburg, containing the leaves of Dicotyledonous
trees, are correctly referred to that formation.

138

SPHENOPTERIS CAUDATA.

Sphenopteris caudata. Supra, vol. 1. ^. 48.

From the shale of Jarrow Colliery.

We trust to be pardoned for republishing this
plant now that we have procured tolerably complete
specimens ; that which was represented at Plate
48, of our first volume, having been taken from
very imperfect fragments.

The impression before us is about a foot long,
and comprehends a considerable portion of the
upper part either of an entire leaf, or of one of the
lateral divisions of a thrice pinnated leaf of con-
siderable size ; one of the pinnae only and a few
fragments, are shewn in our plate.

The pinnae were set on their rachis at intervals of
about an inch and a half; becoming closer towards

VOL. n. o

158

tlie extremity ; a line drawn from point to point of*
their pinnule would form an ovate-lanceolate acu-
minate figure, about four inches long, and one inch
and three-quarters wide in the broadest part.

The pinnules are linear-lanceolate, taper-pointed,
pinnatifid, and sessile, gradually shortening towards
the point of the pinna, till the latter becomes
itself pinnatifid only, and finally only serrated.
From their convexity they must have been of a
thick leathery texture.

The lobes of the pinnules are short, ovate, undi-
vided, and obtuse, with a slight depressed rib in the
middle, which vanishes before it reaches the point,
and a very few almost invisible diverging veins ;
the former are convex above, and distinctly concave
beneath, where, however, w e do not find the slightest
trace of fructification.

We find no published species to which this has a
suflficiently close relation to be worth comparing
with it.

139

CALAMITES VERTICILLATUS.

Professor Phillips has been so obliging as to com-
municate this with the following note.

"A new species of Calamites from the upper
series of the Yorkshire Coal-field . It was found by
my friend, the Rev. W. Richardson of Ferrybridge,
in the sandstone rock of Hound Hill, near Ponte-
fract, in 1828, and is still in his possession. When
we visited the quarry together, it was interesting to
remark, that though in general the Ferns and other
delicate plants are rarely found in open-gramed
gritstones, fronds of Pecopteris, stems of Haloma,
fruits reminding us at least of some of the Palmae,
Lepidodendra, Calamites, and other plants, were
entombed together in this rock."

It is different from any species that has yet
been met with, on account of its distinct whorls
of large deep scars, which represent the pomts ot

o 2

160

attachment of so many branches. This discovery
will probably be found to assist us very much in
forming an opinion upon the real nature of this
singular genus, whenever we shall succeed in
finding a clue to the right understanding of what
such puzzles as Calamites, Sigillaria, and Stigmaria
really were.

140

CAULOPTERIS PHILLIPSII.

For a drawing of this very distinct species of
Tree Fern stem, we are indebted to Professor
Phillips, who communicated it with the following
note.

" This is the plaster cast of a fossil stem trom
Camerton Colliery in Somersetshire, where the
specimen was, I believe, found in the year 1800.
It was, I think, in the possession of the late C. J.
Harford, Esq. a friend of the late Rev. J. Townsend
of Pewsey (author of a well known geological work,
embodying many of Mr. W. Smith's early views)
and of the late Rev. Benjamin Richardson of Farley,
in whose collection this plaster cast was preserved.
It was given to me by Mrs. Richardson in 1833.
I consider it to be the stem of a Tree Fern, different
probably from any yet published. I may remark
that I have never seen any fossil stem which
appeared to possess the character of a Tree Fern

162

from any British Coal-field except that of Somer-
setshire.

No particular markings are observable in the
cast between the cicatrices, but the intervening
spaces appear nearly smooth. The cicatricial
markings are not all similar, and I find on some
recent Tree Ferns considerable variation in this
respect, arising apparently from the singular rup-
ture of the vessels, &;c.

The cast includes probably the greater part of
the breadth of the plant ; it is of an oval figure in
the cross section, in consequence of compression."

It is obviously distinct from C. primcBva, figured
at tab. 42, and these together with the little Cau-
lopteris gracilis, published at tab. 141 of the pre-
sent number, form the only Tree Fern stems we yet
have met with in the Coal Measures.

141

CAULOPTERIS GRACILIS.

An extremely rare fossil, belonging to the Ketley
Coal-field. The only specimen we have seen was
communicated to us by Mr. Prestwich, Jun., from
the shale of the Pinny Iron-stone measure, at the
Hay-pits, Madeley ; it was found associated with
large quantities of marine shells." It also exists
in the collection of Mr. Austin of Madeley.

Our specimen is a hollow cylinder, marked inter-
nally with deep and distinct longitudinal fissures,
about half an inch long, alternating with each
other, and piercing the whole thickness of the
cylinder, so that where the latter is broken across
it is separated into lobes of unequal width, as is
shewn in our figure. Externally the surface is
covered irregularly with elevated lines, which
appear to be the remains of fibres that were attached
firmly to the surface ; it is also pierced here and
there with fissures which communicate with the
inside.

We know of nothing among recent plants to
which this can be compared except a slender Fern-
stem ; with which we are disposed to identify it,

164

notwithstanding the absence of the scars of leaves,
and its fibrous surface.

In all Tree Ferns the scars disappear towards the
lower part of the stem, where their place is occupied
by a layer of entangled fibres ; so that this, if a
Fern stem, must have been the lower end of one.

The cylinder of which the trunk of a Tree Fern
consists, is composed of a number of irregular lobes,
which are the bases of the leaves, adhering to each
other by their sides ; in this specimen the fissures
may be considered the lines of contact of such bases.
We do not, however, know any recent Fern in which
the bases of the leaves adhere to each other so
slightly as to leave passages between them ; but in
Dicksonia arhorea, the internal furrows are so deep
that this nearly happens.

Each base of a Fern leaf, consists of an external
coating of a hard texture, and of a softer substance
in which a number of sinuous plates are arranged.
It often happens that the soft substance shrinks away
from the hard outer case, thus leaving a space
between the two ; precisely the same thing seems
to have happened in this fossil (see fig. 2).

Upon the whole we regard it as tolerably certain
that this was the base of a slender Fern-stem ; and
upon this supposition we especially recommend it
to the consideration of those who occupy themselves
with the study of the economy of recent Fern-
trunks. If we are not greatly mistaken, it is cal-
culated to throw no inconsiderable degree of light
upon what has hitherto been a very obscure subject.

142 A

TlllGONOCARPUM OVATUM,

Communicated by Mr. Prestwich, Jun., from
the Pinny Iron-stone measure at Ketley : it is now
in the collection of Mr. Austin of Madeley.

The existence of Palms at the time of the Coal
measures has always been insisted upon as one of
the many proofs that the Vegetation of the Coal
sera was tropical; but this, like the arguments
derived from the supposed existence of Tree Fern
stems, has long been exposed to objections which
are not easily answered. We have shewn, at table
42 of the first volume of this work, that up to the
time when that article made its appearance, there
had not been a single genuine Tree Fern stem
described from the old Coal of any part of the
world ; now, with what are published in our present
number, the existence of three English species will
have been demonstrated. So with Palms ; no one
has yet seen Fdlm-wood in the Coal measures, only
three kinds of leaves have been referred to this class,

166

and of those, one, the Flahellaria Borassifolia, is
probably not a Palm at all ; while the other two,
})oth belonging to the genus Noggerathia, are by no
means so clearly proved to be Palms that a ques-
tion could not be raised about them, especially in
the absence of proof of the existence of other species ;
and finally, doubts have been expressed by Adolphe
Brongniart [^Prod. p. \20), whether the fossil Coal
fruits, supposed to belong to Palms, were not in fact
something; else.

Under these circumstances, we think we shall be
rendering good service to Geology if we can suc-
ceed in producing tolerably good evidence, in two
more cases, of the existence of Palms in this coun-
try at the time when the Coal was deposited, and
a third which is supported upon testimony which
the most scrupulous Botanist cannot gainsay.

The first to which we have to call attention is
the subject of this article (t. 142, f. A). This was
an ovate fruit, of the exact size shewn in our draw-
ing, originally covered with a thin coat, which
now remains in the form of a thin broken carbo-
naceous crust ; below this coat was a thick shell
marked with three projecting ribs, and within the
shell was a single seed which seems to have stood
erect in the cavity ; all this is visible in our speci-
men, in consequence of the shell having been
broken through from the apex, so as to lay bare
the seed. The latter seems to have been soft at the
time when it was converted into ironstone, for

167

there is a distinct trace of a deep depression in two
places, just at the point where the shell is frac-
tured. No trace of calyx, or of any other body
is discernible externally.

Now all this is exactly what would be seen in
many Palms, which have in like manner a three-
ribbed fruit containing a single seed within a thick
shell, and if their seed were decayed, its sides
would give way just as has happened here, in con-
sequence of its being hollow like the Cocoa-nut ;
such a Palm is the common Chilian Micrococos,
which is so commonly sold in the market of
Valparaiso. Supposing the apex of such a Palm
could be laid bare by a fracture of the shell,
as has occurred in our fossil, a number of veins
would be seen passing downwards from the apex
towards the base; traces of such a structure
are distinctly visible here, only they are scarcely
elevated above the surface of the seed, which may
have been caused by the decay of the latter.

No doubt this is nearly allied to Pahnacite^ dubius
of Sternberg, which Brongniart calls Trigonocar-
pum dubium, but that species is both rounder and
smaller.

142 B

POACITES COCOINA.

Obligingly communicated to us from the Lan-
cashire Coal-field, by Dr. Black of Bolton.

The only two species we have seen of this, are
the present, and another from Bideford, in Devon-
shire, among some vegetable fossils, collected by Mr.
De la Beche, and in both the two parts of which the
species consisted were placed obliquely with respect
to each other, as is represented in the drawing ; the
one half having convex veins, and therefore shew-
ing the lower surface, while the other half is proved,
by its concave veins, to have been the upper surface.
It is evident that they were applied to each other
face to face, and one would think that their relative
position was caused by their having been doubled
down upon each other.

From the great breadth of this leaf, and its ap-
parent length, it could scarcely have been any thing
except the leaf of some pinnated Palm, whose pinnae
are of considerable width, as in many species of

170

Cocos ; at least we know of no other monoco-
tyledonons leaf with which it can be compared.

Supposing this analogy to be a just one, it is not
impossible that the position of the two faces, which
seems to be caused by the leaf being doubled up,
may be owing to the original structure of the leaf
itself. For if it is the remains of a simply pinnated
leaf, the under side might belong to one pinna,
and the upper to another, pressed against each
other in consequence of the leaf being folded up.
And this we are the more inclined to suspect may
be the case, in consequence of both the specimens
we have seen, from distant localities, being in just
the same state, a circumstance which would hardly
have occurred if the doubling of the leaf were
accidental.

This we regard then as a second' new instance
of the existence of Palms in the Coal measures.

142 C

TRIGONOCARPUM NOGGERATHI.

Trigonocarpiim Noggerathi. Ad.Brong. Prodr.p. 137.
Palmacites Noggerathi. Sternb, t. 55./. 6, 7,

Whatever opinion may be held of the relation
of the last two fossils to Palms, there cannot be the
slightest as to this, for which we are also indebted
to Dr. Black. It occurs in considerable quantity
here and there, imbedded in sandstone, as if it had
originally grown in large clusters : as was in all
probability the case. We regard this as by far the
most interesting fruit yet met with in the Coal
measures.

It is possibly to this that Adolphe Brongniart
alludes, when speaking of two or three species of
hexagonal fruit, found in the Coal, which he con-
siders cannot be Palm fruits, because in all the
genera of this family, when tlie fruit is symmetrical

172

it consists of three parts and not of six.'" Upon
this we must remark, that although a six-sided
figure is not common in Palms, yet it exists in
JDiplothertiium maritimum; and that moreover this
may be proved to be a Palm upon the clearest
evidence.

The principal part of what we have examined
consists of specimens of an ash grey colour, almost
exactly oval, but more acute at one end than the
other, and marked with three acute and three ob-
tuse ribs, of which the latter are but little elevated.
Fig. 1, represents a side view of one of them ; 2,
the base, and 3, the apex : in this there is nothing
that can be called evidence. But upon fracturing
a mass of sandstone, in which great numbers of
fruits were imbedded, we were so fortunate as to
obtain a distinct view of the internal structure, as
represented at fig. 4 ; from which it appears that
the fossil in its ordinary state, is an interior part
divested of a fleshy covering.

It consisted originally of a soft coat (fig. 4, a.),
and was blunt at the apex, but tapered into a stalk
(fig. 4, e.) at the base. Within this was another
covering (fig. 4. h.), which enclosed a single seed.
In the specimen the lower end of the seed was de-
pressed as if it had been softened ; in the centre
(fig. 4, c.) it had a small round depression ; and a
number of veins passed downwards from its apex,
losing themselves near the middle of the seed.

Now all this is so completely the structure of a

173

Palm, tliat there can be no doubt whatever that this
fossil was the fruit of a plant of that kind ; indeed
the depression in the centre (fig. 4. c), which in-
dicates tlie seat of the embryo, and the raphe so
rich in veins, are to be found combined in no other
plants.

In fact, let any one compare it with a Date-fruit,
and it will be impossible not to recognise the great
similarity in organization.

It is, however, very remarkable in this fossil,
that although it has apparently the drupaceous
structure of such fruits as the Cocoa-nuts, yet it
has no pore provided for the escape of the embryo.
It is impossible for so small and weak an ()rgan as
the embryo of a Palm to force its way through so
hard and thick a covering as a Cocoa-nut shell,
and, consequently, nature thins the shell over
against the embryo, in order to enable the root of
the latter to find its way into the earth ; this con-
trivance is seen on a Cocoa-nut shell, in the form
of the three well known black spots at the end.
It is to be expected that some trace of this contri-
vance would be discernible here; but as that is not
the case we must suppose that the secord coat of the
fruit, which answers to the stone, was in this instance
soft enough to render such a provision as an em-
bryo-pore unnecessary. Upon this supposition it
will have belonged to a genus essentially distinct
from any at present known.

VOL. II.

p

j

JVatfiral Si-zr

143

CYCADEOIDEA PYGMiEA.

Communicated by Professor Buckland, from the
lias at Lyme Regis. The specimen belongs to Miss
Philpotts.

At first sight this might be taken for the cone of
some tree ; but the irregularity of its figure, and of
the arrangement of th^? scars upon its surface, to-
gether with the appearance of a large tubercle on
one side, will alone throw doubt upon the correct-
ness of such an opinion ; and this doubt is increased
by the absence of all trace of seeds in a polished
vertical section. When cut through from the apex
to the base, nothing can be seen except the bases of
blunt scales, planted perpendicularly upon a thick
and solid centre.

In fact, we entertain little doubt that instead of
a cone, we are to consider it as tlie stem of a small
species of Zamia, analogous to those productions in
the Isle of Portland, the real nature of which Profes-

sor Buckland has so satisfactorily elucidated in the
Transactions of the Geological Society. Upon this
supposition the tubercle near the middle will be a
rudimentary branch, and all the irregularity of
form and arrangement in the spaces which cover
the surface, especially near the base, will be con-
sistent with what we should find in nature.

Our figure is taken from a beautiful drawing by
Mr. Sowerby, for which w^e are indebted to the
liberality of Professor Buckland.

1

144

PHLEBOPTERIS CONTIGUA.

This genus is figured in the 83rd plate of Brong-
niart's History of Fossil Plants, but the letter press
has not yet reached us. It appears to be distinctly
characterized by the presence, next the midrib, of a
row of areolae, the upper edge of which is either
oblique or parallel with the midrib, on which the
simple or dichotomous veins are planted almost
perpendicularly.

As a species this is obviously distinguished from
Brongniart's plant, by its pinnae being so close
together as to touch each other at the edges, and
much wider, while their costal areolae are oblique
instead of semi-hexagons.

It was found in Iron nodules in the Oolitic for-
mation of Gristhorpe Bay near Scarborough, and
was communicated by our excellent correspondent
Mr. Williamson, Jun., with the following note.

178

^' The central stem has tapered very rapidly,
and is rather strongly striated. The greater part
of it, however (as well as the central nerve of the
leaflets), is decomposed as usual. The leaflets are
alternate, slightly curved upwards, about one inch
and a half long, terminating in an obtuse apex.
The divisions do not quite descend to the central
stem, but their place is occupied by a remarkable
arrangement of the nerves, which will be better
understood by the magnified drawing than by my
describing it. The small spaces on each side of
the main nerve are rather irregularly formed, some-
times opposite and in others alternate, but more
frequently the former, so as to shew a string of
curious heart-shaped appearances in the centre of
each leaflet. The nervures are sometimes divided
near the margin ; about every second and third.
I cannot discover any traces of the sori Brongniart
mentions : they either do not exist in our specimen,
or are very minute, and on the under side of the
leaf, so as to be invisible. This is the only speci-
men I have seen : we have another which differs
from this, in the nerves not dichotomizing at the
margin."

1

145

PECOPTERIS MANTELLI.

Pecopteris Mantelli. Ad. Brongn. Hist, des Veg. foss. v. I,
278, t. 83,/. 3,4.

For this we are indebted to Mr. Conway of the
Pontnewydd works, who obligingly communicated
an excellent drawing of it with the following note.

After noticing its great resemblance in some
respects to Pecopteris heterophylla, tab. 38 of this
work, this gentleman remarks, ^' that the difference
between the two will be found sufficiently great to
form them into distinct species. The pinnae of
this plant are much longer, and neither so much
tapered nor so acutely pointed as in P. heterophylla ;
but the most remarkable difference consists in the
terminal leaflets, A and B, which give this speci-
men quite a distinct character, and must have

180

produced a very graceful habit in the living plant.
The specimen is from the Coal Mines of the British
Iron Company at Abersychan in Monmouthshire,
and is the only one I have ever seen".

It does not appear to differ from P. Mantelli, of
which Adolphe Brongniart has given a figure, from
a specimen without the terminal pinnae, communi-
cated to him by Mr. Mantell, from the Newcastle
Coal measures. That learned Geologist compares
it with the common Pecopteris lonchitica ; from which
it is obviously to be distinguished by its very narrow
and obtuse pinnae, independently of the long termi-
nal one. Like Pecopteris heterophylla it represents
an extinct form of Pteris, of the nature of Ptei^is
caudata and aquilina. Adolphe Brongniart regards
it as intermediate between Pteris caudata and
arachnoideay two West Indian species.

14(>

SPHENOPTERIS CONWAYl.

For this also we are indebted to the same intel-
ligent correspondent who furnished us with the
last subject.

Mr. Conway observes, that there appears to
have been a very peculiar character belonging to
this Fern. It seems to have been coriaceous and
very thick, so as to give to the whole plant somewhat
of a tubercnlated appearance. Each portion of
the leaflet appears as if formed of a separate globule,
and the globules seem, by compression, to have been
squeezed into each other, and thus to form one
mass. This may possibly arise from the plants being
in fructification. When the impression of the under
side is left in the shale it is in very deep indenta-
tions ; and, if these indentations are the impressions
left by the sori, then they must have been arranged
somewhat in the same manner as those on the
Aspidium Filix mas of the present day. The pinnules

VOL. II. Q

182

are attached to the rachis by the whole of their
base, and the veins radiate, as it were, from the
base of each apparent tubercle of which the frond
is composed, without any division or branching.
This I have endeavoured to represent in a magni-
fied portion. The only specimens I have seen are
from Risca, in this county, and there, I understand,
it is a common fossil."

Not having seen a specimen we are able to add
but little to the foregoing remarks.

The fossil obviously belongs to the set of Sphe-
nopterisy consisting of S. Hdninghausi, rigida, tri-
foliolata, and obtusiloba, which Adolphe Brongniart
justly compares with the larger species of the mo-
dern genus Cheilanthes. They all are Coal mea-
sure plants, having that character of convexity in
the lobes of the pinnules, which Mr. Conway justly
describes as giving the plant a tubercular appear-
ance. If, however, they were really related to
Cheilanthes, it is to be remarked that this convexity
was not owing to the pressure of a large central
sorus beneath each lobe, but to the curving back-
wards of the edges of the lobes so as to cover the
narrow marginal sori.

From the species described by Adolphe Brong-
niart, this differs essentially in the pinnules being
seated close upon the rachis, and touching each
other, so that to the naked eye the pinnae look as
if they were regularly pinnatifid with very short
acute lobes. Each of these supposed lobes is in

183

reality a pinnule, consisting of three or five lobes,
of which the lowest are much the largest, and the
terminal one rather narrower and longer than the
intermediate ones, if there is any of the latter
present.

We have named it in compliment to the gentle-
man who has so obligingly communicated it to us ;
as a slight acknowledgment of the value we attach
to his investigations of the highly interesting Coal
flora of South Wales.

From the appearance of this specimen it may be
conjectured that it was a Tree Fern ; for although
there may be some doubt whether the lateral rami-
fications are in all cases actually attached to the
central rachis, yet the general relation borne to each
other by the parts as they lie imbedded in the shale,
is such as to render it highly probable that they all
once belonged to each other. In this case the
species would not be very widely different from the
Cheilanthes arborescens, a Tree Fern which now in*-
habits the New Hebrides.

I

p

MaonirM.

147

SPHENOPTERIS POLYPHYLLA.

Communicated by Mr. Murchison,* from the
coal of the Titterstone Clee, in Shropshire, where
it was found by Mr. Lewis.

* This, with many others, some of which form a part of the
present Number, was collected by Mr. Murchison, during his recent
geological surveys of Salop, Hereford, and the adjoining counties.
These plants are from the Knowlsbury coal-field, a small elliptical
basin, situated at the south-western termination of the carboniferous
tract of the Titterstone Clee Hills. They occur chiefly in the roof
of the great coal, and gutter coal, and also in the concretions of
iron-stone. It is important to remark, that in a Memoir lately read
before the Geological Society, Mr. Murchison has shown, that the
Clee Hill coal-measures, as well as those of Coal-brook Dale, of
the Wyne Forest, and of Oswestry, are all of older date than those
of the Shrewsbury field. The latter containing a fresh-water lime-
stone, and passing upwards into the base of the newer red sandstone,
is proved to be the youngest of these carboniferous zones. Ik is
from a portion 'of this Shrewsbury coal-field (Le Botwood), that we
formerly published the specimens of Neuropteris cordata, Odon-
topteris obtusa, and Cyperites bicarinata, figured in our first volume,
which plants Mr. Murchison has discovered in various parts of the
same field, associated with Pecopteris lonchitica.

VOL. II. R

186

It is a very distinct species, allied to Sph. ohtu-
siloba, but decidedly different in the lengthened
form of the central piece in all the tliree-lobed
segments of its leaves.

The leaves were bipinnated at least, and possi-
bly more frequently divided ; both the principal
and secondary pinnee were so closely placed that
the lobes over-lapped each other. The segments
of the pinnae had an ovate, or somewhat heart-
shaped figure, and were divided into from three to
five lobes. When the lobes were five, the terminal
one was not much longer than the others, but they
all had a rounded termination, and the lateral
were sometimes split ; when the lobes were only
three, the terminal one was always much longer
than the two lateral ones, which near the point of
the pinnae became mere auricles and finally dis-
appeared. The veins were wide apart and almost
always forked.

148

SPHENOPTERIS SERRATa.

Discovered in the lower sandstone and shale of
the Oolitic series at Cloughton Wyke, near Scar-
borough; for the drawing we are obliged to Mr.
Williamson, jun.

The leaves were bipinnated, with all their divi-
sions regularly alternate. The pinnae were five or
six inches long, and consisted of about twenty-four
pairs of narrow, very regularly, and deeply ser-
rated lobes, which gradually tapered to a narrow
but not acuminated point. Each division of its
lobes is represented by Mr. Williamson as having
a set of very delicate veins passing towards the
point, and sending off simple veinlets obliquely
and laterally.

Only one specimen has been met with in a
coarse-grained sandstone, much impregnated with
iroii.

188

From nearly the whole of the lobes of this plant
having had their ends abruptly broken off, it is not
improbable that it had been lying for some time
in troubled water before it was deposited, for we
have remarked the same circumstance occur in
recent ferns which have accidentally fallen into a
large piece of water, provided they have their lobes
serrated in the same degree as this species.

Polypodium and Aspidium are two modern genera,
both of which contain species analogous to this,
but we have not succeeded in identifying it with
any recent plant.

We have no fossil Sphenopteris with which it is
at all necessary to compare this.

I'l^h by U^sr^Ridinray.lMrui<m.Jpnl. 7835.

149

SIGILLARIA MURCHISONI.

From the Knowlsbiiry Coal-field, whence it was
brought by Mr. Murchison, after whom we have
named it.

There is no species which has yet been published
for which this can be mistaken. It is most like
S. oculata, but is quite distinct from it and all
others on account of the singular markings of its
surface.

The only specimen we have seen consists of six
broken elevated ribs with concave spaces, about
four lines wide, between them. The scars are
exactly the form of those in Sig. oculata, and have
a double or triple point of communication beyond
their centre. The surface between the ribs is very
sharply and distinctly marked with broken wrinkles
which form curves connecting the ribs ; these
curves are by no means uniform or regular, but
are placed at unequal distances and often anas-
tomoze.

I

I

Maantfled.

lith fyJIif'iyjii/fawa.v.Loruian.J^nl. 1835.

150

OTOPTERIS? DUBIA.

The only specimen of this curious plant that has
yet been met with is one which was procured
by Mr. Murchison, from the sandstone of the
Knowlsburv coal-field.

If really 'duOtopteris it will be extremely interest-
ing, as being the first species of its genus that
has occurred in the coal formation. Hitherto it
has been supposed confined to the Oolitic series, if
we except a doubtful plant from the New Red
Sandstone. (See page 142 of this volume).

This specimen is so very like O. ohtusa (tab. 128)
in size and general appearance, that although it
is essentially distinguished by its leaflets being
narrowed to their base, instead of being broad and
auricled, we are led to suppose it may belong to the
same genus. There would be no doubt indeed of

192

the matter, if the embedded leaflets were all
decidedly upon the same plane, for then we should
be sure that it was really a pinnated leaf ; but the
leaflets are so irregularly imbedded in the sand-
stone, some being visible upon fractures of the
surface considerably lower than others, that we
cannot avoid entertaining a suspicion that the
leaflets, or rather leaves, as in that case they would
be, were either whorled or placed all round a
slender stem. Should this be so, the plant would
then be a new species of either Sphenophyllum or
Trizygia, both of which are genera confined to the
Coal-measures ; and this is perhaps the more
probable supposition.

As far as we can make out, the ends of the leaflets
were rounded as we have represented them, but we
cannot be sure that the margin has not been broken
away.

./.

Pub- Ifv Mfj!t:'IfMawa.v.I.on,inn jlpril 1835.

151

SPHENOPTERIS MACILENTA.

Found in the coal mines at Risca in Monmouth-
shire ; and communicated to us by Mr. Conway.

The only specimen which has yet occurred, and
which is that now represented, is a very perfect
impression of a pinnated leaf, the pinnae of which
are deeply pinnatifid at the base, but with con-
fluent lobes at the apex. The lobes appear to
have been very thin and delicate after the manner
of recent Adiantums : the lowermost on each pinna
were roundish, contracted at their base into a very
short stalk, and pretty regularly three-lobed. As
they approach the apex the lobes lose all trace of
a stalk, become entire, and at last are confluent
into a tapering pinnatifid extremity. The veins
are so delicate, or have been so imperfectly pre-
served, as to be scarcely visible when they approach
the margin of the lobes ; nearer the base they are

194

more distinct, and spread regularly from their
origin, bifurcating as the lobe dilates.

This is nearly allied to Sphenopteris adiantoides,
already hgured at t. 115 of this work ; but it differs
essentially from that species in the tapering form
of its pinnse, and in the division of its lobes.
Whether it was pinnated or bipinnated the speci-
men does not enable us to determine. It is also
closely related to Sp. latifolia, t. 156, but was a
plant of a much larger size in all its parts.

I

152

LEPIDOPHYLLUM TRINERVE.

Sent from the Coal-measures of Blackwoodia,
Monmouthshire, by our obliging correspondent
Mr. Conway.

Figs. 1 and 2 represent the fossil as it has occur-
red ; fig. 3 is a sketch by Mr. Conway, of the
manner in which he conjectures the leaves to have
been formed. He observes at the base of each
leaf a kind of plicature, as if its substance was a
little wrinkled, and from the nature of the plaits it
would seem that the leaf-stalk had been of a thick
leathery texture.

This agrees well enough with the structure of
Araucaria, and the close contact in which it is
obvious from fig. 2, that the leaves must have
grown is further confirmatory of the opinion that

196

Lepidophylla are the leaves of some plants very
similar in manner of growth to the South American
species of that genus.

The three strong veins in the leaves are charac-
teristic of this species.

1

153

PECOPTERIS LONCHITICA.

Planta diluviana epiphyllospermos in saxo dimidiato convexo-
plano in profunditate ingenti reperta in fodinis ferri prope New-
castle Northumbriae. Scheuch. herb, diluv. p. 74. t. \. f. 4.

Filicites lonchiticus. Schloth. Petrefakty p. 411. Flora der
vorwelt, p. 54. t,\\. f, 22.

Alethopteris lonchitidis et vulgatior. Sternb, Fl. der vorw,
fasc. 4. p. xxi. t. 53. f. 2.

Pecopteris blechnoides. Ad.Brong, Prodr.p. 56.

Pecopteris lonchitica. Id. Prodr. p. 57. Hist, des Veg.
Foss.p.274. t. 84./. 1—7. t. 128.

One of the commonest of the plants of the old
coal formation, occurring in great numbers in
various mines of France, Bohemia, Silesia, and
England. It has lately been met with in great
numbers by Mr. De la Beche in coal at Bideford
in Devonshire.

The fragments in which it is found being often
from different parts of a leaf, are sometimes so

198

different in appearance as to have led to the for-
mation of several spurious species. When the
pinnules are decurrent it is the Alethopteris lon-
chiiidis of Sternberg, when rounded at the base it
is the Alethopteris vulgatior of the same author.
Adolphe Brongniart originally separated it into
Pecopteris lonchitica and blechnoides, but afterwards
combined them ; and we do not see on what
character his P. Serlii from the Bath coal-field is
to be distinguished.

From a comparison of various specimens in
different states, it is to be gathered that this plant
w^as a bipinnated fern with leaves about the size of
those of the common Brake, or something larger.
The lobes were long, narrow, and usually decur-
rent, contracting, however, at the base towards the
lower part of the pinnae. In some cases they were
acute, in others acuminated, and occasionally
they were rather obtuse. Towards the end of the
pinnse they became confluent, diminished very
much in size, and at last ended in a long lobe,
resembling those at the base of the pinnse both in
size and form. In all cases they were strongly
marked with a midrib, on which were placed
almost perpendicularly a number of close fine veins
which are usually simple but sometimes forked.

In all the specimens we have examined the lobes
of the leaves have uniformly been convex, and
sometimes in a remarkable degree ; this circum-
stance, which shews that they were originally of a

199

thick texture, taken togetlier with the general
resemblance of this plant to certain species of
Pteris, especially to P. aquilinay and several Indian
kinds, has led to the suspicion that it must have
been in fact a species of that genus ; and Adolphe
Brongniart has stated that it is most nearly allied
to Pt. caudata, a West Indian plant. It must,
however, be observed, that the veins in that species
and in all those of the same division of the genus,
are much more distant and forked than in this,
which, if a Pteris at all, we should consider more
nearly allied to some of the simply pinnated
Pterides, notwithstanding its greater degree of
division. It is, however, entirely different from
all the recent species of which we have any know-
ledge, and in fact so nearly agrees with several
Blechna in its veins, especially B, orientale, that we
are by no means sure that the weight of evidence
is not in favour of its being a Blechnum rather than
a Pteris.

I

f

I

I

I

Pub by Jfeftr^Huifiwe^y. Zondtm.. April . 7d3f).

154

PECOPTERIS DENTATA.

P. dentata, Ad. Brongn. prodr. 58, Histoire des vcg. foss,
ro/. 1.M24.

From a coarse micaceous shale in the Newcastle
Coal-field.

The portion here represented was the upper part
of a pinna of a tripinnated plant, which must have
been of considerable size; judging from a noble
specimen figured by Adolphe Brongniart probably
arborescent. Each pinnule was on an average an
inch and a half long, and the distance between
the setting on of the pinnules was about four lines.
The lobes were placed close together, and were
about two and a half lines long ; at the base they
were slightly united, at their points they were
rather acute, their sides were nearly parallel and

VOL. II. s

202

crenelled ; they were traversed by a midrib, which
reached to their apex, and gave off obliquely a
number of distant forked veins.

This differs from P. penncsforniis, another Coal-
measure plant, in almost nothing except the cre-
nelling of the lobes of the leaves, as far as we have
any means of judging ; but as the letter-press of
Adolphe Brongniart's work, containing the descrip-
tion of this has not yet appeared, we are ignorant
of the motives he has had for separating them.

155

OTOPTERIS CUNEATA.

We are acquainted with this remarkal)le little
plant only from the accompanying drawing, and a
description with which we have been favoured by
Mr. Williamson, jun.

It was discovered at Gristhorpe Bay near Scar-
borough, and is supposed by Mr. Williamson to
have been a fern belonging to the genus Glossop-
teris and having its leaflets both springing from a
common point. The veins are described as being
twice or thrice forked between the setting on of the
leaf, and the margin ; the leaflets, in the only two
specimens that have been met with, appear to
originate from the apex of a short common stalk,
and were roundish-oblong, with something of a
wedge-shaped outline.

As the leaflets have no midrib, but are mere
membranous expansions, traversed by veins ra-
diating from the base, and branching at regular
intervals, so as to fill up the parenchyma, it is not

204

possible to refer this plant to GlossopteriSy neither is
it very easy, in the absence of a greater number of
specimens, to know in what other genus to station
it. We are not sure whether it really did consist
of only one pair of leaflets, and we do not know
whether the stalk is all that the plant ever had, or
whether it is not a part of something very much
branched. It is, however, most probable that it
was allied to Otopteris Beanii, and the other species
of that very distinctly marked group, and it is
thither that we think it safest to refer it.

I

Btt- f>y JQfsr'Rutffway. London. Jpnl. 1836

156

SPHENOPTERIS LATIFOLIA.

Sph. latifolia, Ad. Brongn, prodr. 51. Hist, des vcg.fo
1. 205. t. 51. f. 1—5.

From the Bensham and Jarrow coal-mines where
it is common.

A twice or thrice pinnated plant, the pinnse of
whose leaves vary very much in different specimens.
They are generally, as represented in the plate,
broad and blunt, with a heart-shaped outline, and
consisting of about five rounded, nearly equal seg-
ments, which are divided almost down to the
midrib. But occasionally they consist of seven
segments, the lowermost of which are three-lobed
and the upper confluent ; in other cases they have
almost constantly only three rounded segments,

208

Pecopteris Williamsonis

insignis

serra

nervosa

repanda

dentata

loncbitica

blechnoides

]\Iantelli

Whitbiensis

-r— — — Nebbensis

propinqua

undans

laciniata

Phlebopteris contigua
Fhyllites nervidostis
Pinnularia capillacea
Pinus primaeva
Poacites cocoina
Pterophylluin pecten

Schizopteris adnascens
Sigillaria Murchisoni

Plate
126
160
107
94
84
154
153
153
145
134
134
119
120
122
144
104
111
135
142 B
102

100-101
149

Solenites Murrayana
Sphenopteris polyphylla .

• latifolia

macilenta .

serrata

■ caudata

Conwayi .

Williamsonis

digitata

multifida .

adiantoides

crenata

obovata

Strobilites Bucklandii
elongata

Taeniopteris major
Trigonocarpum ovatum
Noggeratbi

Zamia crassa
macrocepbala

Plate
121
147
156
151
148
138
146
131
131
123
115
100-101
109
129
89

92
142 A
142 C

136
125

THE END OF VOL. II.

NOnMAN AND SKEEN, PRINTERS, MAIDEN LA>E, COVENT GARDEN.

4

,1

DATE DUE

—

CAYLORO

PRINTEOINUS.A.

WALTHAM. f.^ASS. C2154