138 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
stems like the former group, but of weaker consistency. The plant has 
nodes, weak and inconspicuous, with branches at the nodes, and, on 
the smaller stems, whorls of forking lacineate leaves, in fours. What 
Nathorst calls sporangial ears [bracts?] are found near the ends of the 
smaller branches, but the fruit is obscure. 
An important genus of plants, and one quite characteristic of the 
Upper Devonian in Europe is what Dr. Nathorst calls Bothrodendron 
(Cyclostigma) using this double name throughout his memoir.* He 
shows the plant of various ages and conditions of preservation, but 
none in leaf. 
Besides the Irish species Dr. Nathorst describes and figures several 
other species of Bothrodendron (Cyclostigma), and the genus was evi- 
dently present at Bear Island in considerable diversity. He also speaks 
of examples from the Harz in Germany, from Siberia, and from Aus- 
tralia, that may be the same with P. (C.) Kiltorkense. 
The Bear Island flora also contains a rare Lepidodendron and a 
Stigmaria; the rarity of the former genus is somewhat remarkable, when 
one considers how common it was in the succeeding Lower Carboniferous 
period. At Bear Island there was also an Anarthrocanna, which re- 
sembles much a fern-rhizome, Rhizomopteris Nordenskjoldi, described 
by Dr. Nathorst from the same terrane. 
The scientific world owes a large debt of gratitude to Professor 
Nathorst for the thorough way in which he has worked out this remark- 
able flora, and it is the more interesting as this island is one of the few 
places in the world where a genuine Devonian coal seam is known to 
exist, that is of workable thickness. Three consecutive seams have 
been found on the island, one of which is nearly four feet thick. 
The writer has given special prominence to this flora, partly on 
account of its unusual but characteristic composition, and partly because 
it carries some of the best known types of Devonian vegetation to so 
*The use of the first of these names seems to the present writer inappropriate 
for the Bear Island fossils. Bothrodendron was a generic name given by Lindley 
and Hutton to a stem of the Coal Measures marked by a row of large cone, or ap- 
pendage scars, and so far as one can judge from the figures and description quite 
unlike any fossil of the Bear Island flora. Nathorst does not show a single example 
having the great scars, which the authors of the genus evidently thought an essential 
part of the fossil; Dr. Nathorst appears to use the name to make the plant he is 
describing plain to German geologists, who have used the name for a lot of badly 
preserved plant remains of Devonian etc., age, which show scars along the trunk 
similar to this English Coal-measure genus. The plant is stated by Nathorst to be 
the same as the Irish Cyclostigma Kiltorkense of the English palæobotanists, and 
the application to it of the name Bothrodendron seems foreed. Mr. Kidston has 
made Bothrodendron punctatum L. and H. synonymous with Sigillaria discophora 
Kônig (sp); other writers have included it in the genus Ulodendron. 
