64 Contributions towards Establishing the General Character 



Henry Steinhauer,* who described it under Martin's name " PhytoUthm 

 verrucosus*" He supposed it to have been a " cylindrical trunk or root 

 grouA,ng in a direction nearly horizontal, in tJie soft mud, at the bottom offresh^ 

 water lakes or seas, without branches, but sending out fibres on all 



The next account of this fossil appeared in the ''Fossil Flora," by Lind- 

 leyandHutton, who have expressed themselves much in the same terms 

 as Steinhauer, respecting its habitat and mode of vegetating ; but instead 

 of a branchless cylindrical trunk, as Steinhauer supposed, their view is, 

 that it had a centre, in the form of a " continuous homogeneous cup or 

 dome," from which '* numerous arms proceeded on all sides." 



In connection with the specimen which has led to the foregoing opi- 

 nion, and which Messrs Lindley and Hutton have figured in their 

 " Fossil Flora," t a point must, in the next place, be considered, which, 

 if not cleared up, will leave the question now entered upon completely 

 inconclusive, however cogent the arguments may be that are to be 

 adduced. 



As the specimen itself has not been fully described, — and as it is for- 

 tunately preserved in the Newcastle Museum, though not exactly in the 

 same condition as when first obtained, — the present opportunity may 

 be embraced to state, that it is a convex mass of shale about four feet 

 and a-half in diameter, and fifteen inches high in the centre : the crown 

 or central part, which may be reckoned two feet across, is evenly 

 rounded, and the sides are channelled: the whole of the crown is 

 crowded with strongly marked wrinkles, which pass off into the chan- 

 nels on the sides : in a few instances, a channel is occupied with a com- 

 pressed branch, also composed of shale, and encircled with a thin layer 

 of coal — in this case, the remains of a cuticle ; with this exception, the 

 specimen is completely decorticated. It is necessary to observe, that 

 the strong wrinkles of the crown become much finer as they pass off 

 into the channels ; and that there is superadded to the latter a number 

 of scars, which, as well as their accompanying wrinkles, are in every 

 respect similar to those of Stigmaria : both characters were doubtlessly 

 impressed by the outer surface of the cuticle of the branches. After 

 alluding to some other specimens which had been discovered in the roof 

 of the Bensham seam in Jarrow colliery, one of which is described as 

 shewing a central concavity and fifteen arms proceeding from it, and 

 consequently resembling the fossil represented in their thirty-first plate, 

 figure 1, the authors of the " Fossil Flora, " proceed to state, that the 

 convex specimen " has detached itself from the roof, which none of the 

 before-cited instances did. This exhibits the same wrinkled appear- 

 ance, with indistinct circular spots, as the under side, described vol. i. 



• Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, N. S. Vol. i. 1818. 

 t " Fossil Flora," vol. ii. Preface, p. xiii. 



