380 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



The first point to which I shall refer, and which will lead to 

 the other matters to be discussed, is the relation of the charac. 

 teristic Lepidodendron of the Devonian of Eastern America, 

 L. Gaspianum, to L. nothum of Unger and of Salter. At 

 the time when I described this species I had not access to 

 Scottish specimens of Lepidodendron from the Devonian, but 

 these had been well figured and described by Salter, and had 

 been identified with L. nothum of Unger, a species evidently 

 distinct from mine, as was also that figured and described by 

 Salter, whether identical or not with Unger's species. In 1870 

 I had for the first time an opportunity to study Scottish speci- 

 mens in the collection of Mr. Peach ; and on the evidence thus 

 afforded I stated confidently that these specimens represented a 

 species distinct from L. Gaspianum, perhaps even generically 

 so. * It differs from L. Gaspianum in its habit of growth 

 by developing small lateral branches instead of bifurcating, and 

 in its foliage by the absence or obsolete character of the leaf- 

 bases and the closely placed and somewhat appressed leaves. If 

 an appearance of swelling at the end of a lateral branch in one 

 specimen indicates a strobile of fructification, then its fruit was 

 not dissimilar from that of the Canadian species in its position 

 and general form, though it may have differed in details. On 

 these grounds I declined to identify the Scottish species with L. 

 Gaspianum. The Lepidodendron from the Devonian of Belgium 

 described and figured by Crepin,f has a better claim to such 

 identification, and would seem to prove that this species existed 

 in Europe as well as in America. I also saw in Mr. Peach's 

 collection in 1870, some fragments which seemed to me distinct 

 from Salter's species, and possibly belonging to L. Gaspianum.% 

 In the earliest description of Psilophyton I recognized its 

 probable generic affinity with Miller's ' dichotomous plants,' with 

 Salter's ' rootlets,' and with Goeppert's Haliserites Dechenianus, 

 and stated that I had " little doubt that materials exist in the 

 Old Red Sandstone of Scotland for the reconstruction of at least 

 one species of this genus." Since, however, Miller's plants had 

 been referred to coniferous roots, and to fucoids, and Goeppert's 

 Haliserites was a name applicable only to fucoids, and since the 

 structure and fruit of my plants placed them near to Lycopods, 



* Report on Devonian Plants of Canada, 1871. 



f Observations sur quelques Plantes Fossiles des depots Devoniens. 



X Proceedings Geological Society of London, March 1871. 



