[MATTHEW] UPPER DEVONIAN PLANTS 103 



"In the Ferns and Clubmosses the whorled arrangement, although 

 following the usual law, appears to be insufficient to produce division 

 of the stem into nodes, as in the Equisetacae and some other natural 

 families. 



Cyclostigmace.e. 



"The fossil plants of the yellow sandstones of the county of 

 Kilkenny occur, as they do in other parts of Ireland, in the sandstone 

 lying immediately under the great mass of the Carboniferous lime- 

 stone, which constitutes the most important number of the Irish 

 fossiliferous rocks. They are found about ninety feet below the 

 lowest bed of limestone, and are in rocks composed of red white and 

 blue hone stone, and above the plant beds a remarkable white-grit 

 conglomerate is found. 



"The fossil plants here have not been described except casually. 

 They consist of remains of a large fern called Cyclopteris hihernica by 

 Professor Forbes, associated with a large bivalve (shell) named by 

 him Anodon Jukesii; of undescribed dermal plates of a cartilagenous 

 fish (probably a species of Coccosteus), and of numerous unknown 

 plants, closely allied to Lepidodendron and so named by Professor 

 Forbes and M. Brongniart, the latter of whom has named a remarkable 

 species, preserved in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society, L. 

 Griffithsi. . Other of these fossils have been named Knorria, 



and a large undescribed group remains to which I propose to give the 

 name." 



Cyclostigma (Plates II, III and IV.) 



Order CYCLOSTIGMACEM. 



"Natural order of fossil plants found in the lowest beds of the 

 Carboniferous system, part of the oldest flora known to have existed 

 on the globe; probably closely allied to the orders (genera) described as 

 Knorria, Lepidodendron and Sigillaria; known only by their leaf- 

 scars and leaves, which were arranged in alternate whorls; the leaf 

 scars perfectly circular, showing in many cases a minute and well 

 marked dot in the center, probably coinciding with a central bundle 

 of woody tissue; many of the larger plants show traces of a thick 

 central woody axis, like that found in Stigmaria stems, much crushed 

 and flattened, as if they were not woody throughout. Approaches 

 nearest to Stigmariaceœ, from which they differ in the leaf-whorls 

 being farther apart and more distinct. Plate II, figs. 1 and 2 represents 

 varieties of this remarkable fossil, showing the alternate whorled 

 arrangement of the leaf-scars. . . None of them are perfect 

 stems, but appear to be torn portions of the rind of large plants, which 



