The illustration on plate six gives an excellent idea 
of the complicated branch system. The main petiole or 
“stem” which bears this fructification has branched sev¬ 
eral times, so that at the plane of this preparation, four 
“secondary” petioles carry the actual fruiting portion of 
the plant. These are branched many times, as is most 
evident. 
Diagnosis of the species 
Botryopteris Renault 1875 Ann. Sci. Nat. (Bot.) 
(6e Ser.) T.l, p.223. 
Botryopteris globosa Darrah sp. nov. 6 plates. 
Fern fructification, naked, pedicellate, composed of 
a great globose aggregation of sporangia measuring ap¬ 
proximately 5 cm. X5 cm. X6 cm., borne terminally up¬ 
on a petiole provided with the typical Botryopterid stele. 
Sporangia moderately large, approximately 1.5 X 1.0 
mm. in diameter, more or less angular in shape but slight¬ 
ly pyriform, borne in clusters of from three to ten, or 
more, upon short pedicels, which are the ultimate branch¬ 
es of the petioles. Spores moderately large, nearly spheri¬ 
cal, varying in diameter from 0.05 to 0.065 mm. 
Foliage unknown. 
Iowa : Dallas County, Waukee, Shuler Coal Mine, and Urbandale 
Coal Mine. F. O. Thompson Collection 42159, 42635 Cotypes, also 
42160, 42161, 42162, 42163, 42618 all Shuler Mine. 42679 Urban- 
dale Mine. 
Carboniferous : Pennsylvanian: Des Moines Series: Coal number 
7. 
Specimens in the Paleobotanical Collections of the Botanical 
Museum of Harvard University. 
Scott (18) suggested that the large mass of crowded 
sporangia represented “no doubt, the collective output 
of a compound fertile frond”. He interpreted the fructi- 
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