153 



4. In Goppert's work, Gatt : foss : Pfl : 1 and 2, tab. 10, 

 fig. 10, is a figure of a forked branch of fossil Stigmaria, with 

 the cicatrix of a leaf at the angle of the fork ; this leaf may be 

 seen in just that position in Picea, and existed in most of the 

 branches Mr. Teschemacher had examined. This he considered 

 a very striking resemblance. 



5. The cicatrices of the leaves in the specimen on the An- 

 thracite coal are seen to be placed on the stem in a spiral direc- 

 tion, from the right to the left hand, and the termination of each 

 spiral, where one cicatrix is precisely over that beginning the 

 spiral, is in the eighth turn round the stem. In Picea, as was 

 seen in the specimens exhibited, the arrangement is also spiral, 

 from right to left, and the spire terminates in the eighth turn. 

 The number of leaves of the spiral also agrees in the fossil with 

 the recent plant, although the cone of Picea^ as the most normal 

 exposition of this character, gives 21. 



6. In the figures of Stigmaria, by Lindley and Hutton, copied 

 by Goppert, the branches are represented as proceeding in one 

 plane at right angles with the central stem, and at a short dis- 

 tance branching in forks ; this is also the growth of the whorls of 

 branches of Picea. 



7. The woody structure of the Coniferce. is very characteristic ; 

 the central pith is cellular ; there are few spiral vessels, but the 

 chief mass is pleurenchyma or ligneous tissue with glandular 

 markings. Specimens of charred pine wood compared with the 

 charcoal on the Anthracite, showing a striking resemblance, 

 particularly of the annual rings ; had the lines on the fossil been 

 made by vessels, as in leaves of Graminese, the impression of the 

 vessels, or perhaps portions of the vessels, would appear as in 

 numerous other specimens of leaves. These markings are what 

 Goppert, in his Prize Essay, calls, the annual rings of Araucaria. 

 Mr. Teschemacher observed that he could not measure the 

 weight of evidence necessary to produce conviction in the minds 

 of others, but he felt persuaded that the abundant Stigmaria was 

 the fossil of a Coniferous tree nearly allied to Picea. In accord- 

 ance with this view, he exhibited a specimen which appeared to 

 him more to resemble the impression of a cone than of any Lepi- 

 dodendron or Sagenaria hitherto figured ; but as he had only 

 found two specimens of this nature, he had not at all a decided 



