12 Devonian Plants, 



to regard it as of animal rather than vegetable origin. If a plant, 

 it must, I presume, be referred to the genus Knorria (see fig. 5). 

 In the same collection is a flattened and obscurely marked stem, 

 from rocks of the same age at Kettle Point, Lake Huron. Its 

 markings are scarcely sufficiently distinct for description, but can- 

 not be distinguished from those of some of the varieties of 

 Knorria imbricata. 



Another suite of specimens in the Museum of the Geological 

 Survey indicates the existence of a large plant, the precise nature 

 of which it is perhaps at present impossible to determine. 

 One of the specimens from Gaspe has the aspect of a long flat- 

 tened trunk, having in a few places the remains of a carbonaceous 

 coating, presenting longitudinal ribs like those of Calamites, It is 

 crossed at intervals by markings not quite at right angles to the 

 sides of the stem, each of which consists of a sharp ridge with a 

 furrow at either side. The specimen is four inches in breadth and 

 about four feet in length. Other specimens from Kettle Point vary 

 from five inches to one inch in breadth ; and some of them show 

 traces of longitudinal ribs, but others are quite smooth, or marked 

 only by the rhombic structure-lines of the coaly matter. All show 

 transverse or diagonal ridges, though some of these seem to be 

 merely cracks filled with mineral matter. Crushed Calamites, 

 in a very bad state of preservation, might assume these ap- 

 pearances; but, until better specimens occur, the true nature of 

 these plants must remain doubtful. They are very possibly of 

 the same nature with the Calamite-like stems described by Miller 

 in his 'Testimony of the Rocks,' p. 439. 



In every part of the Gaspd sections, beds occur having their 

 surfaces thickly covered with fragments of carbonized vegetable 

 matter, evidently drifted by the currents which deposited the sand 



composing the beds. A large proportion 

 of these comminuted plants belong to the 

 genus Psiloijhyton ; but many are frag- 

 ments of the wood of larger vegetables. 

 Nearly all are in a very imperfect state of 

 preservation ; and most of those that retain 

 the'.r structure show a scalariform tissue 



similar to that represented in fio;. 6, and 

 Pig- 6. '' . . 



probably belong to the a^lso^ Lepidoden- 



Fig. 6. Scalariform tissue dron. Others exhibit elongated woody 

 (magnified 300 diams.) ^^^j^^ ^.^j^^^^ ^^^^^^ markings, perhaps 



