86 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Annulaeia acuminata Dn. 



Spoeangites acdminatus Dn. 



Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, 1862, p. 312, PI. XIII, fig. 21. 



Acad. Geol., 2nd Ed., p. .540, fig. 194g. 



Foss. Plants Dev. and Sil., Form'n of Can., p. 63, PI. XIX, figs. 232 to 234. 



Leaves, oblong, acuminate, one nerved, 6-9 in a whorl, erect or slightly 

 spreading. Whorls usiuilly found disconnected. 



Sir William speaks of the occurrence of these whorls on the surfaces 

 of the shales of Carleton and that they are rare, he also compares the 

 plant to A. sphenophylloides, linger, of the coal formation of Pennsyl- 

 vania. In Acadian Geology he adds that some specimens show a few 

 whorls attached to each other by a very slender stem. 



In " Fossil Plants " where he transfers this form to his new genus 

 Sporangites, he gives a new diagnosis: — 



Spore cases: oblong acuminate, six to nine ^ in a whorl, erect or slightly 

 spreading. Dehiscence lateral 



and says, " additional specimens lead me to believe that these supposed 

 whorls of leaves are really clusters of spore-cases which may have be- 

 longed to Psilophyton or to ferns. They are not very dissimilar from the 

 spore-cases of Psilophyton robustius." 



Though the writer has collected and handled many examples of this 

 fossil he has not been able to find any with the full number of " six to 

 nine " [bracts] mentioned as typical of it ; five is a common number 

 and four is not infrequent. It seems quite possible that when Sir Wil- 

 liam described this fossil as an Annularia he may have assumed the pre- 

 sence of a certain number of leaves, not visible, as belonging to the op- 

 posite side of the whorl, from that preserved in the specimen. He de- 

 scribes these leaves [bracts] as having a single (median) nerve, but I 

 have found the nerves to fork once or twice in their upward course 

 through the 1)ract, as in Sphenophylhim and some Whittleseyas, and the 

 surface of the bract is grooved with longitudinal grooves, something like 

 the latter genus, but more irregularly. 



These bracts of Sporangites acuminata have associated with them on 

 the same surfaces of the shale somewhat smaller, long-oval bodies, smooth 

 and without veins, and acuminate. These are not so numerous as the 



1 The figure in Flora of Devonian period Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. '62 pi. XIII, 

 fig. 21. shows four bracts in the whorl ; that in Acad. Geol. a similar number, but 

 ot a different form : but in Foss. Plants Devon, and U. Sil. several figures are 

 given, one of which shows six bracts (fig. 232) and the bract is shown to be 2-3 

 nerved (fig. 233). 



