of the Fossil Plants of the genus Sigillaria. 289 



made out that the smallest are true veins ? This question suggests itself 

 in consequence of what I have observed on a specimen of Zamia gigas.* 

 In this fossil the veins are strong, and rather closelj" approximated, 

 and the cellular tissue of the leaflet is arranged in linear series, corre- 

 sponding with the direction of the veins. Hence it has occurred to me, 

 that the so-called small veins of the Swedish Nilssoniie, may be nothing 

 more than the cells of parenchymatous tissue intervening the true veins, 

 arranged in the same manner. How far I am correct in this view, I have 

 no means at present of ascertaining ; but from what I have observed in 

 Cycadites j'ectinoides , Zamia lanceolata, and Palceozamia pecten, the ap- 

 pearance of small veins intervening the large kinds in those plants, may 

 certainly be explained by the fact which has been noticed in Zamia 

 gigas. Future observations will, I trust, enable us to decide as to 

 whether these fossils might not be included in the genus Nihsonia ; at 

 any rate they cannot, I am of opinion, be placed in Oiopteris. If they 

 are not Nilssonia, it necessarily follows, from their being furnished with 

 characters which are not to be found in species of the existing genus 

 Zamia and its allies, that they will have to be placed in some other genus. 

 As Endlicher evidently had fossils of this kind in view, {e.g. Zamia taxinu, 

 L. & H.) when he proposed his Palceozamia^ I think it would be the 

 most judicious plan to include them in this genus for the present. 



The Cutch fossils, which Mr Morris considers as the t^-pe of his genus 

 Ptilophyllum, appear to be as variable as Cycadites pectinoides. When 

 young, the leafletsare, as Mr Morris describes, closely approximated ; but, 

 in a more advanced state, they are separated from each other nearly a 

 quarter of an inch, and their basal margin becomes dilated on the inferior 

 as well as the superior side of the leaflet. In the last state they offer a 

 striking general resemblance to Cycadites sulcicavUs of Phillips (C^enw /a /- 

 cata, Lind. and Hutt.). The Indian and Yorkshire fossils, however, dif- 

 fer in this — in the former the veins are simply forked, but in the latter 

 they anastomose. This brief account is from specimens in my cabi- 

 net, brought from the Behar Hills, in India. 



It is very much to be regretted, that Brongniart, in naming the York- 

 shire Cycadeous plants in his " Prodrome,", did not give, at the same time, 

 such a description of each as would have enabled others to have identi- 

 fied his species : and it is equally to be regretted, that Professor Phillips, 

 when he discarded, in his excellent treatise on Geology, in the "■ En- 

 cyclopsedia Metropolitana," the names which he had previously pub- 

 lished, of probably the same fossils, in his '' Geology of the Yorkshire 

 Coast," did not give us the synonyms of those which are adopted in the 

 former work. It is true, Mr Morris has done this to a certain extent in 

 his "Remarks upon the recent and fossil Cycadeae," which appeared in 

 the Annals of Natural History for April 1841 ; but the synonyms therein 

 mentioned do not appear to agree with the catalogue of Jurassic plants 

 which Professor Phillips has published in the treatise just referred to. I 

 am, therefore, unable to give the synon^'ms of the Otopteroid and other 

 allied fossils, which have been mentioned in this paper, so completely aa 

 I should have wished, in the following synopsis. 



Synopsis of the spedes of the genus Otopteris. 

 Otopteris ? dubia, (Lindley and Hutton), *' Fossil Flora,*' pi. 150. 

 .'' Dufresnoyi, {Netrroptcris Dv/resnoyi), Brong., " Vegetaux 



Fossiles," pi. 74, fig. 4. 

 Beani, Cychpteris Bcanii. (Lindley and Hutton), " Fossil 



Flora," pi. 44. 



* " Fossil Flora," Plate 165. 



