BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS, F.G.S., F.L.S. 159 



No genus of living Conifers corresponds with these fossil plants. 

 The leaves are short and fleshy, straight or curved, contiguous at 

 the base, but with age they resemble pentagonal or hexagonal 

 cushions which clothe the branch like a cuirass. In this state 

 they have been mistaken for the cones of Cycads or Conifers. The 

 leaf scars resemble those of Lepidodendron. The fruits are 

 unknown, and therefore the systematic position is uncertain. 

 They are generally Oolitic fossils. 



Brachyphyllum (?) australe. Feistmantel (I.e., p. 98, plate 7, 

 figs. 3 to 6, and plate 17.) Branchlets elongate, slender, flexuous, 

 much branched, leaves spirally disposed, squamiform, rhomboid- 

 oblong, somewhat thick, apex acuminate, sub-keeled and a little 

 flattened, amentum covered with sub-rhomboid, acute, acuminate 

 scales, the apex somewhat flattened and spirally disposed. 



The form and position of the leaves corresponds well with the 

 typical species of Brachyjyhyllum. Several specimens of this fossil 

 were found in the Eskbank and Lithgow collieries. 



Brachyphyllum australe, var. or n.s., crassum, nobis, Plate 5. 

 Brong. Prod., p. 19, Mamillaria desnoyersii, Ann. Sc. Nat. pi. 19, 

 fig 9. Unger. Gen. et Spec, p. 308 (included amongst cycadaceaj). 

 Branches and branchlets rigid, coarse and thick, leaves more or less 

 irregular in shape, and mammillately shield-like, bases contiguous, 

 5 to 6 angled. Schimper separates this fossil from B. mamillare, 

 Lind. and Hutton, which is much more slender and with more 

 numerous branches. It is found abundantly in the Oolite of 

 Oxford, Wiltshire, Yorkshire, and in several places in France. 

 The above is Schimper' s definition. 



In the Geological Magazine for 1869 (vol. 6) there are figs, at 

 PI. ii., figs 12, 13, of branches of a coniferous plant, which Schimper 

 identifies with this species. That which I distinguish as a variety of 

 the same, may be thus described. Plant robust, thick, stem and 

 branches, repeatedly dichotomous. Leaves thick and fleshy, 

 densely crowded, homodromous, short, broad, obtuse, conspicuously 

 keeled, erect, closely imbricate, but slightly spreading. Branches 

 and branchlets very little narrower than the parent stem, and of 

 equal width to the summit. All portions of the plant curved. 



