of the Rocks associated with the Coal of Australia. 153 



en distance par des gaines appliquees contre cette tige, comme 

 dans les Equisetum, mais terminees par de longues feuilles 

 lineaires, qui remplacent les dents courtes des gaines des Preles. 

 Ces feuilles sont, ou dressees, ou plus souvent etalees, et meme 

 reflechies ; elles sont lineaires, aigues, sans nervure distincte, au 

 moins deux fois plus longues que la gaine. Les gaines elles- 

 niemes presentent de legers sillons longitudinaux, qui disparais- 

 sent vers la base, et qui semblent correspondre a Pintervalle des 

 feuilles, comme les sillons des gaines des Equisetum corre- 

 spondent a l'intervalle des dents. La tige, dans Pespace qui se- 

 pare les gaines, paroit lisse; mais sur des fragmens de tiges un peu 

 plus grosses, qui appartiennent probablement a des individus plus 

 ages, de la meme plante, on voit des stries regulieres, presque 

 comme sur les Calamites." While, on the other hand, Messrs. 

 Lindley and Hutton in their ' Fossil Flora ' (article Hippurites 

 gigantea) state, that having examined specimens communicated 

 by Dr. Buckland (from whom also Brongniart received his), they 

 found Brongniart's description inaccurate, and that the leaves, 

 instead of springing from the edge of the sheath, arise immediately 

 from the stem, and having in addition to the whorl of distinct 

 leaves " a sheath originating within them and closely embracing 

 the stem, to which it gives the appearance of the barren shoots 

 of an Equisetum, with its whorls of slender branches on the out- 

 side of a toothed sheath." Unger, in his f Chloris Protogsea/ 

 referring both to Brongniart and Lindley and Hutton, defines 

 the plant as " Caulis simplex, rectus, articulatus vaginatusque. 

 Folia verticillata linearia, enervia contracta v. expansa, vaginas 

 articulorum strictas circumdantia." Mr. Morris, I believe the 

 latest writer on this plant, closely follows Brongniart in his ob- 

 servations on its structure. 



I have now stated what I believe to be all the published infor- 

 mation regarding this very interesting form, and as it has not 

 been hitherto figured, and the published accounts are contradic- 

 tory among themselves, and none of them as I find strictly ap- 

 plicable to the plant, it may be interesting to detail some of the 

 observations I have been enabled to make on those specimens 

 which have come under my notice. 



I find in the whitish clay beds of Mulubimba a profusion of 

 plants having cylindrical jointed stems, the joints surrounded by 

 sheaths, and the free edge of each sheath terminating in a whorl 

 of long, linear leaves. Here we have all the essential characters of 

 Phyllotheca, but beyond this there is no agreement with the de- 

 scriptions of those few botanists who have seen the plant. And 

 here I may be permitted to state, that from the number of speci- 

 mens which I have examined with great care, there remains not a 

 doubt on my mind of the accuracy of M. Brongniart's view of 



