[MATTHEwJ FLORA or THE LITTLE RIVER GROUP NO. II 87 



bracts of *S'. acuminatus, but appear to be closely associated with that 

 form, and it not infrequently happens that whorls of the former are 

 found with an oval spot at the lower two-thirds of the bract, showing a 

 greater thickness of substance here. I think that this may be due 

 to these oval objects which, though without vascular tissue, were of 

 quite solid substance, and probably were the seeds of this Pteridosperm. 

 Sir Wm. Dawson figures one of these groups of seeds as a Sporangites 

 acuminatus, but it will be noted that there are only three lobes, or seeds, 

 the largest number of these objects attached together in a bunch, and 

 not the full number of five, of the bracts of Sporangites. These oval 

 bodies I suppose to be the seeds of this Pteridosperm. 



It appears highly probable that the whorls of bracts were deciduous, 

 and when ripe apt to be swept away from the plant by high winds. This 

 would account for the fact that we find them abundantly spread over 

 certain layers of the shales, from which the vegetative or filicoid parts 

 of this plant are absent. But in the usual occurrences they are found 

 freely mingled with the slender peduncles, as though the two had broken 

 apart, but had fallen at nearly the same time. The relation of entomb- 

 mjent is such as might occur in the fallen leaves of the Mountain Ash 

 {Pyrus americana) in which the rachis of tlie leaves falls separately from 

 the leaflets, so that on the ground they are promiscuously mingled with 

 the latter. 



GINKGOPHYTON, n. gen. 



Plants with more or less wedge-shaped leaves having a flabellate 

 venation. The leaves were arranged in an alternately pinnate manner 

 on a woody rachis. On some branches the leaves are contracted and 

 thickened andl assume the form of fruit-bracts. 



The fruit is in the forai of a small berry, dehiscent at maturity; 

 they appear to have grown in clusters, near together, on branches of the 

 stem. 



In the venation of the leaves and in the fniit, this genus resembles 

 the Gingko (Salisburia), but its parts are on a smaller scale. 



GiNKGOPHYTON Leavitti, n. sp. Plate IV. 



Stem. — The prostrate stems are stout, succulent, of cellular tissue 

 and do not show a vascular aiis, but apparently had a rough warty 

 epidermis. 



Branches. — The branches are short, woody and frequently divided 

 with five to seven pinnules or leaves on a branch ; each leaf has a short 

 broad pedicle, or was sessile. 



Leaves. — The common form of leaf was small, wedge-obovate to 

 orbicular-ovate, concave toward the centre and somewhat revolute at the 



