476 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. fVol. ix. 



The first and most interesting is a small Tree-fern, Asteropferis 

 novehoracensis, characterised by an axial cylinder composed of ra- 

 diating vertical plates of scalariform tissue, imbedded in paren- 

 chyma, and surrounded by an outer cylinder penetrated with leaf- 

 bundles with dumb-bell-shaped vascular bundles. The specimen 

 was collected by Mr. B. Wright, in the Upper Devonian of New 

 York. 



Another new fern from New York is a species of Equisetites 

 (E. Wriglitianus) , showing a hairy or bristly surface, and sheaths 

 of about twelve, short, acuminate leaves. 



A new and particular form of wood, obtained by Prof. Clarke, 



of Amherst College, Massachusetts, from the Devonian of New 



York, was described under the name Cellidoxylon prhncevum. It 



presents some analogies with Frototaxites and with Apliyllum 



paradoxiun of Unger. 



Several new ferns were described from the well-known Middle 

 Devonian plant-beds of St. John, New Brunswick ; and new 

 facts were mentioned as confirmatory of the aw assi^'ned to these 



111' ~ o 



beds, as showing the harmony of their flora with that of the Eriaa 

 of New York, and as illustrating the fact that the flora of the 

 Middle and Upper Devonian was eminently distinguished by the 

 number and variety of its species of ferns, both herbaceous and 

 arborescent. It will probably be found eventually that in ferns, 

 equisetaceous plants and conifers, the Devonian was relatively 

 richer than the Carboniferous. 



Reference was also made to a seed of the genus ^theotesta of 

 Charles Brougniart, found by the Rev. T, Brown in the Old Red 

 Sandstone of Perthshire, Scotland, and to a species of the genus 

 DicranophyUum of Grand'-Eury, discovered by Mr. J. L. Jack, 

 F.Gr.S., in the Devonian of Queensland. 



In all, this paper added six or seven new types to the flora of 

 the Erian period. Several of them belong to generic forms not 

 previously traced further back than the Carboniferous. 



The author uses the term " Erian " for that great system of 

 formations intervening in America between the Upper Silurian 

 and the Lower Carboniferous, and which, in the present uncer- 

 tainty as to formations of this age in Great Britain, should be 

 regarded as the type of the formations of the period. It is the 

 "Erie Division" of the original Survey of New York, and is 

 spread around the shores of Lake Erie, and to a great distance to 

 the southward. 



Published March 17, 1S80. 



