384 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



dently from inattention to the descriptions and want of access 

 to specimens) doubts the Lycopodiaceous character of species 

 of Lycopodites described in my papers in the Journal of this 

 Society from the Devonian of America. Of these L. Rlchardsoni 

 and L. Matthewi are undoubtedly very near to the modern genus 

 Lycopodium. L. Vanuxemii is, I admit, more problematical ; 

 but Schimper could scarcely have supposed it to be a fern or a 

 fucoid allied to Caulerpa had he noticed that both in my species 

 and the allied L. penncrformis of Goeppert, which he does not 

 appear to notice, the pinnules are articulated upon the stem, and 

 leave scars where they have fallen off. When in Belfast last 

 summer I was much interested by finding in Prof. Thomson's 

 collection a specimen from Caithness, which shows a plant appa- 

 rently of this kind, with the same long narrow pinnae or leaflets, 

 attached, however, to thicker stems, and rolled up in a circinate 

 manner. It seems to be a plant in vernation, and the parts are 

 too much crowded and pressed together to admit of being accu- 

 rately figured or described ; but I think I can scarcely be deceived 

 as to its true nature. The circinate arrangement in this case 

 would favour a relationship to ferns ; but some Lycopodiaceous 

 plants also roll themselvea in this way, and so do the branches 

 of the plants of the genus Psilophyton.'" 



No figure of the plant was given, and Mr. Carruthers, if he 

 noticed the reference, very probably did not connect it with the 

 plant which he received from Sir Philip Egerton. His figure 

 however, published in the Journal of Botany for 1873, leaves no 

 room to doubt that he has had in his possession the counterpart 

 of Thomson's specimen, of which a figure is given in this paper. 

 My interpretation of it differs considerably from his, and as the 

 matter is of some palaeontological interest, I shall proceed to 

 describe the specimen from my point of view. 



The specimen consists of a short erect stem, on which are 

 placed somewhat stout alternate branches, extending obliquely 

 outward and then curving inward in a circinate manner. The 

 lower ones appear to produce on their inner sides short lateral 

 branchlets, and upon these and also upon the curved extremities 

 of the branches, are long narrow linear leaves placed iu a crowded 

 manner, and which are the "tufts of linear bodies" referred to 

 by Mr. Carruthers. The specimen is thus not a spike of fruc- 

 tification but a young stem or branch in vernation, and which 

 when unrolled would be of the form of those peculiar pinnate 



