120 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ASTEEOPHYLLTTES Brongniart. 



In this genus the writer has retained such species described by 

 Sir Wm. Dawson as do not fall under Lepidocalamus or Annularia. By 

 some authors a number of these would be included in Calamocladus, 

 a genus established by Scliimper to include branches of Calamités; 

 the others would fall under Asterophyllum of Schimper. He distin- 

 guishfô this genus from the former by its having three as the funda- 

 mental number of leaves in a whorl, as in Sphenophyllum, by the 

 absence of a diaphragmatic ring, and by the vascular hardening of the 

 nodes. These distinctions are difficult to apply in the case of the 

 plant remains from the Little Eiver group owing to their broken con- 

 dition and defective présentation, and it has not been attempted here; 

 Asterophyllites has been retained for both groups of species. 



AsTEROPHYLLiTES LONGiFOLius, Sternb. Plate I, Fig. 3. 



Sternb. Brukmannia longifolia, Vei-such, vol. 1, p. xxix, fac. 4^ pi. Iviii^ 

 fig. 1. 



Daws. Asterophyllites longifolia. Acad. Geol, p. 539. 



Lesq'x. Asterophyllites longifolius. Coal Flora of Penn. p. 36. 



Branches genprally small, witli distinct articulations, distinctly stri- 

 ate; leaves numerous, very long, open, linear, fat, flexiious. 



Lesquereuji says that the leaves of this species vary from three to 

 ten centimetres in length, averaging seven or eight. They are very 

 narrow, scarcely one millimetre broad, flat, rather flexuous than rigid, 

 median nerve distinct. 



There may be some question as to the reference of the examples 

 from the Little River group to this species, Sir William, although he 

 mentions the species in his Acadian Geology, omits it from the final 

 summing up of the Devonian flora ^ ; perhaps he had found reason to 

 place it elsewhere [as leaves of Calamités tî'ansitionis?^ 



The leaves of the j^lant which we have referred to A. longifolius, 

 Brongt., are numerous at the whorls, and, as they are somewhat flexuous, 

 they cross each other on the layers of shale, but I have found no certain 

 proof that they are dichotoraous. The branch which Lesquereux figures 

 in the Coal Flora of Pennsylvania '^ expresses the simplicity of the leaf, 

 and a similar absence of dichotomy holds for examples from the strata 

 of the Little Eiver group. 



^ Fossil Plants of the Devonian and U. Silurian, p. 85. 

 =" Vol. Ill, PI. XCIII, fig 2. 



