290 Mr. J. S. Patrick on the Fossil Vegetables 



thill that they seem to have been hollow like the Calamite, and 

 to have possessed very little substance^ although attaining a 

 height of 40 or 50 feet. The compressed stems have been found 

 as much as 5 feet in breadth. They are fluted longitudinally in 

 general, and marked at regular intervals with single or double 

 scars, evidently produced by leaves which have been articulated 

 to the stem. These marks are different in the decorticated state 

 of the fossil from those which appear on the surface of the coaly 

 envelope representing the bark. [This is well seen in the SigiU 

 laria reniformis.'] M. Brongniart considers these to be the re- 

 mains of the stems of arborescent ferns, but Lindley and Hutton 

 have established that the fluted SigillaricB have nothing analogous 

 to tree-ferns. On the contrary, they appear to have been plants 

 with hollow cylindrical stems, consisting of wood and bark and 

 clothed with leaves, attaining a height of 40 to 60 feet, but be- 

 longing to a family vrith no representative, or even relation, in 

 the ^ Flora ' of our day.^' I have two varieties of the Sigillaria : 

 Sigil. reniformis, two of the fragments of which must have be- 

 longed to very large individuals of the species, and Sigil. oculata. 



I may remark that there is a very able and interesting article 

 in the January Number of the ' Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal,' edited by Prof. Jameson, " On the general character of 

 the Fossil Plants of the genus Sigillaria," from the pen of Wm. 

 King, Esq., Curator of the Museum of the Natural History So- 

 ciety of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 

 from which, however, my limits will not allow me at present to 

 quote. 



Mr. Landsborough says, " The most magnificent fossil found 

 in the quarry is Bothrodendron punctatum. Only two specimens 

 have been found, of which I possess one." He would have per- 

 mitted me to exhibit it to the Royal Society, but he adds, " since 

 leaving the Manse my minerals have got into sad confusion, and 

 amid the press of business I have not been able to arrange them, 

 or lay my hands upon it, although it is a specimen I could with 

 difficulty lift from the ground." / have not been able to obtain 

 a good specimen of this remarkable fossil, but have been fortu- 

 nate enough to find, among the debris of the quarry, a very di- 

 stinct impression or cover of one. 



Another very curious and remarkable fossil is the Stylolithon, 

 of which there appears to be two distinct varieties ; one with 

 very broad stripes, the other with the lines more closely approxi- 

 mating to each other, but more deeply indented. 

 ^ Another peculiar fossil was discovered lately by Mr. Landsbo- 

 rough, and has been named by him Batodendron, from ^dro^s, a 

 bramble, and hevhpov, a tree, from the exact resemblance it bears 



