FOSSIL PLANTS OF BRITAIN. 179 



Polypodium vulgar e, perhaps the growth of centuries, was 

 sending forth its thousand fronds ; but everywhere, heath, and 

 fern, and moss, and rock, and trickling streams of water, were 

 so mingled with the forestry moored in the crevices, that it 

 was a scene goodly to look on and delightful to scramble over. 

 Afterwards the hill became bare, and a little track of steps 

 worn or cut in the rocks, showed that human beings went 

 further down towards the water. It was very steep, but we 

 descended in single file ; presently our leader disappeared ; 

 he had entered that strange cavity in the rock called St. 

 Kevin's bed ; I followed, and our companion followed me. 

 It is a strange excavation, and its romantic situation, the 

 difficulty of access to it, and the little probability of a visit, 

 point it out as a likely residence for such an ascetic as St. 

 Kevin. We read the autographs of Scott, Moore, and other 

 wise men who had ventured into this strange place, and had 

 written their names against the wall ; and there we sat, hud- 

 dled together, gazing out upon 



" That lake whose gloomy shore, 

 Skylark never warbled o'er :" 



and so end my Notes on the Natural Histoiy of Ireland. 



Art. V. — A Systematic Catalogue of the Fossil Plants of Britain. 

 By John Morris Esq. 



{Continued from page 80.) 



Hymenophyllites, ' Gopp. 



Fronds membranous, bi- or tri-pinnate ; pinnules pinnatifid and dilated 

 at the base, adhering to the rachis, which is generally winged. Veins sim- 

 ple, direct, one to each lacinia, rarely dichotomous. Sori roundish, mar- 

 ginal. 



* Rachis terete. 



Hymen, quercifolius, Gopp. page 252, tab. 14, fig. 1, 2. Coal 



measures, Silesia. 

 Humholdtii, Gopp. page 254, tab. 31, fi^. 1, 2. Coal 



measures, Waldenburg. 



' In the last part of Sternberg's ' Flora der Vorwelt,' Presl has referred to 

 a new genus, Rhodea, some species of Goppert's Hgmenophgllites and Tri- 

 chomanites ; the genus is characterized as follows. — 



Rhode A, Presl. Sternb. Flor. der Vorw. part vii. and viii. page 109. — 

 Frond bi-tripinnate, slender, pinnulce dichotomously pinnatifid, parted or 

 linear, running down a filiform rachis. Veins pinnately branched. 



