90 Annals of the South African 2It(,seum. 



The specimen represented in pi. xi., fig. 1, does not show the 

 surface features of the plant sufficiently clearly to enable one to 

 determine its affinity with certainty ; it is, I believe, a Lepidoden- 

 droid species, but we have no satisfactory indication of the nature of 

 the appendages borne on the spirally disposed scars. In all prob- 

 ability, however, the appendages were leaves, and the fossils present 

 the appearance of aerial rather than subterranean organs. 



My friend Professor Zeiller has drawn my attention to some frag- 

 ments figured by Feistmantel * in his memoir on the Damuda and 

 Panchet beds of India, referred to as pieces of the stem of a coniferous 

 plant, probably Bhipidopsis, which bear a resemblance to the 

 Vereeniging fossils. We may also suggest a comparison with a 

 specimen figured by Schmalhausen from Petschora as a piece of the 

 stem of Bhipidopsis ginhgoidesA Feistmantel's specimens are too 

 indistinct to determine, and there is no satisfactory evidence in 

 support of his determination. The Petschora fossil seems to agree 

 more closely with the Vereeniging stems, and may be Lepidoden- 

 droid. I am indebted to Professor Zeiller for suggesting that the 

 fossils represented on pi. xi., figs. 1, 4, 5, 6, may be gymnospermous 

 stems, their scars being very similar to the leaf-scars of the branches 

 of recent species of Abies. It must be admitted that the surface 

 features of the African specimens do not conform in detail to those 

 of Bothrodendron, but in all probability we have to deal with par- 

 tially decorticated stems, which would not exhibit the parichnos 

 scars nor the characteristic sculpturing of the bark. The apparently 

 dichotomous branching shown in fig. 4 is, I think, an additional 

 argument in favour of assigning the specimens to the Lycopodiales. 



In his recent and very important memoir on Upper Devonian 

 plants of Bear Island, Professor Nathorst figures numerous examples 

 of a Lepidodendroid plant which he identifies as Bothrodendron 

 kiltorkensc (Haugh.).| Haughton's species, Gyclostigma kiltor- 

 kense, § from the Kiltorkan beds of Ireland, was placed in the genus 

 Bothrodendron by Kidston 1| as the result of an examination of a 

 series of specimens in the Dublin Museum. Some of these Arctic 

 specimens bear so close a resemblance to the South African plant 

 that one might be almost tempted to regard the two as identical 

 species. My friend Professor Nathorst, to whom I forwarded a 

 drawing of the African stems agrees with me that they may belong 



* Feistmantel (81^), pi. xlvii.((, figs. 5-7. 



t Schmalhausen (79), pi. viii., fig. 12. 



I Nathorst (02), p. 31, pi. x.-xiv. 



§ Haughton (60). |i Kidston (89), p. GG. 



