Section IV, 1917 [99] Trans. R.S.C. 



The Upper Devonian Plants of Kiltorcan with Descriptions of some 



New Forms. 



By G. F. Matthew, LL.D., D.Sc. 



(Read May Meeting, 1917.) 



Realizing that much remained to be learned of the Palaeozoic 

 floras preceding that contained in the Coal Measures, the writer 

 found it desirable to make a closer investigation of the collections 

 within his reach in the maritime provinces of Canada and elsewhere. 

 He was stimulated to this investigation by the receipt by the Natural 

 History Society of New Brunswick, of a collection of plants from the well 

 known locality at Kiltorcan in Ireland, received through the courtesy 

 of Professor Thomas Johnson of the Royal College of Science of Ire- 

 land, and of the National Museum in Kildare St., Dublin. 



Many of the localities where land plants of Devonian age have 

 been found, in various parts of the world, are in rather coarse grained 

 rocks, which do not lend themselves to a satisfactory preservation of 

 the fossils; these therefore are but imperfectly preserved, and do not 

 show the more delicate parts of the plants. Moreover, in many cases 

 they are remains of plants that have been drifted for some distance 

 in the waters, before entombment, so that the tissues are wasted, and 

 in other respects the plants are in an unsatisfactory state for study. 



Such, however, is not the condition of the Kiltorcan fossils, which 

 are in beds of fine-grained yellowish gray sandstone and shale, and 

 the plants have suffered but little from aqueous transportation. 

 Nevertheless there is some difference in the texture of the containing 

 rock, which varies from a very fine-grained mud to a fine grained 

 sandstone. It is in the latter that the examples of Archseopteris 

 occurs at Kiltorcan. The Knorrias also are more apt to be contained 

 in the coarser rock. But some of the plant remains, especially those 

 of Cyclostigma are in an excellent state of preservation, and exhibit 

 the finer termineal branches and appendages of the plant in good 

 condition, being in the fine-grained shale. 



Hence we can in these see the finer ramifications; the connection 

 of branch and stem, and of leaf and branchlet, in unusual perfection. 

 This is a very desirable thing in all pre-coal measure plants, which in 

 many cases are quite imperfectly preserved, and in relation to which 

 there has not been the same economical urgency to exploitation which 

 has made known so thoroughly the plants of the Coal Measures. 



