74 TRANSACTIONS. NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



then again into sixteen, 1 which seems to be the characteristic 

 number of arms in Stigmaria. The same number of dichotomies 

 was observed in the fine example of Stigmaria which was found 

 at Clayton, and figured by the late Prof. Williamson in his 

 Memoir on Stigmaria.' 1 Messrs. Binney and Harkness were 

 able to trace some of the rootlets attached to their Stigmaria for 

 a distance exceeding three feet in length. 3 



Mr. Binney records a second and somewhat similar discovery 

 in the Colliery of Messrs. Swire, Lees, <fc Co., at Duckenfield, 

 Lancashire. 4 



Additional proof in regard to the true nature of Stigmaria was 

 given in 1848 by Richard Brown in a " Description of an Upright 

 Lepidodendron with Stigmaria Boots in the Roof of the Sydney 

 Main Coal in the Island of Cape Breton." 5 This was followed 

 in 1849 by the "Description of Erect Sigillaria, with Conical 

 Tap-roots, found in the Roof of the Sydney Main Coal in the 

 Island of Cape Breton." c> These " tap-roots " will be referred to 

 later on. 



The fossil stems and their Stigmarian rhizomes discovered in 

 1888 in Lower Carboniferous Rocks at Victoria Park, Whiteinch, 

 Glasgow. 7 will be remembered by many of those present. From 

 the fact that the shale surrounding them contained many impres- 

 sions of the branchlets and stems of Lepidodendron Veltheimianum, 

 Sternb., and of that Lycopod alone, I have no doubt that these 

 examples were the stems of that species. It seems to me almost 

 hopeless to expect to find the leaf-scars preserved on the bark at 

 the base of such large and old stems, for in the course of nature 

 the leaf-scars would become effaced by the natural Assuring and 

 exfoliation of the bark. 



It is not necessary to give further evidence in proof of 

 Stigmaria being the rhizome of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria. 



This is well shown on their Plate. 



Palceont, Soc, 1887, PL XV. 



I. c, p. 243. 



Binney, Quart. Journ. Gtol. Soc, Vol. II., p. 390. 1S46. 



Brown, Quart. Journ. Gtol. Soc, Vol. IV., p. 46. 1848.. 



Brown, ibid., Vol. V, p. 354. 1849. 



Trans. Gtol. Soc Glasgow, Vol. VIII. , p. 227. 1888. 



