92 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



I think there can be no doubt that this St. John species (P. elegans) 

 was a plant of procumbent growth, sending up tufts of shoots at short 

 intervals, from a rather stout but succulent rhizome, much after the 

 manner of Ginl-gophyton Leavitti, but with setaceous not flabellate leaves. 

 It is easy to see that with such a w^ll-preserved vegetation as we have in 

 the Flora of the Little Eiver Group some -of the entombed plants were 

 closely contiguous to, if not actually lying, on the soils from which they 

 had received their nourishment. 



PsiLOPHYTON (?) GLABRUM Dn. Plate VI, Figs. 1-3. 



Sir William Dawson seemed quite doubtful if this plant belonged to 

 his genus above named, and the author's observations serve but to ac- 

 centuate this doubt. The fossil is known only from one bed of the Da- 

 doxylon sandstone where it is in company with great numbers of the 

 small variety (mutation) of Annularia latifolia, and where the associa- 

 tions appear to indicate the presence of a shallow muddy pond filled with 

 water-loving plants. The following is the specific description of this 

 plant by Dawson : — 



" Smooth, flattened, bifurcating stems, two lines in width, with a 

 slender woody axis." 



"I regarded this species, at the time when it was named as of very 

 doubtful character, in so far as its affinities with the proper species of 

 Psilophyton are concerned. Additional specimens have not dispelled my 

 doubts, though I still retain the name to indicate a fossil not infrequent 

 at St. Jolm, but of uncertain nature. The specimens are smooth, flat- 

 tened, bifurcating stems, about two lines in width with indications of a 

 'slender woody and vascular axis. The surface is usually quite smooth, 

 but occasionally marked with fine longitudinal striae. They are always 

 flattened, but from their structures must have been cylindrical, and cel- 

 lular, with a slender axis. They resemble the large stems of Pinnularia, 

 but have no branchlets or indications of these, nor have I found in them 

 any indications of leaves or other organs, though I have stems in my 

 collection apparently well preserved and a foot in length. If not stems 

 of a species of Psilophyton, they must have been roots of some plant of 

 this genus. Thty much resemble certain stems with a slender axis, from 

 the Upper Silurian, referred to farther on." 



Material collected by Mr. A. G. Leavitt gives a better knowledge of 

 this plant than was possessed by Sir Wm. Dawson; it exhibits a plant 

 with a dichotomy more exact than is found in any species of Psilo- 

 phyton. 



In the Psilophyta of the Devonian at Gaspé the dichotomy of the 

 stems is alternate, but in this it is equal, and in the subdivisions branches 



