Section IV, 1891. [ 3 ] Trans. TioY. Soc. Canada. 



I. — Parka decipiens. Notes on specimens from the collections of James Reid, Esq., 



of Allan House, Blairgowrie, Scotland, 



By Sir "William Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., and Prof. Penhallow, B.Sc. 



(Read May 28, 1891.) 



Part I. — Historical and G-kological. 



By Sir "Wm. Dawson. 



Last year I had the pleasure of noticing' some fossil plants from the Lower Devonian, 

 kindly submitted to me by Mr. James Eeid, of Allan House, Blairgowrie, Scotland. In 

 correspondence with Mr. Reid some questions arose respecting the peculiar organisms 

 from the same formations known as Parka decipiens, and Mr. Reid has been so kind as to 

 send from his own collections and those of other friends a large number of specimens of 

 these doubtful objects, which I have studied with much interest, and which I thought 

 it desirable to submit to critical examination by my friend. Professor Penhallow, whose 

 results are given iu Part II. It may be useful, however, to give some preliminary account 

 of the history and geological relations of the fossil. 



Parka decipiens was originally described by Dr. Fleming in 1831.^ This sagacious 

 observer noted its circular groups of small rounded or polygonal, flattened, seed-like 

 bodies, the fact of these being in part covered with a membranous involucral organ and 

 their association with grassy-looking leaves. He regarded it as of vegetable nature, and 

 compared it to the fruit of Juncus or Spurganium? Miller agrees with this view, and in 

 the later editions of the " Old Red Sandstone " he describes it as occurring iu the quarries 

 of Carmylie, in association with "riband-like leaves converging into a short stem," and 

 also with " thickish wrinkled stems." These plants he compares to " stalks of sea-grass- 

 weed plucked up by the roots," and elsewhere to " stems producing Zos/em-like leaves." 

 He quotes, however, the opinion of Lyell that the Parka may be eggs of a mollusk, and 

 seems to lean to the belief that it may have possibly been the spawn of some of the large 

 Devonian crustaceans associated with it in the same beds. In the seventh edition, edited 

 by Mrs. Miller, Symonds adds a note to the effect that Parka is " now known to be the 

 seeds of a plant," and is " abundant in the Kidderminster beds." In another note to the 

 same edition the same view is given, and a specimen is figured from the collection of 

 Lord Kinnaird, showing a peduncle apparently attached to the mass. 



1 ' Nature,' April 10th, 1890. 



^ ' Cheek's Edinburgh Journal.' 



3 Miller, " Testimony of the Rocks." 



