180 P- H. Scott. 



of the Osmundaceous sporangium may be regarded as a shortened 

 multiseriate annuhis. Small, almost spherical sporangia, with a 

 multiseriate annuhis. are constantly found associated with the British 

 species of Botryopteris; there is evidence that they were borne in 

 tufts, as in the much larger fructifications of the French species. 

 The genus Grammatopferis. shortly described by Renault in 1896, 

 appears to have been even simpler in vegetative structure than 

 Botnjopteris ; on the other hand we have in Zijfjopteris^ of which several 

 Carboniferous and Permian species are more or less completely known, 

 a much more advanced t3'pe. The stele, has in some species a stellate 

 iontour, the prominences corresponding to the insertion of the leaf- 

 traces; the wood is of complex structure, the larger elements forming 

 a broad external zone, while the interior is occupied by a system of 

 smaller tracheides intermingled with parenchyma. In this respect 



there is a striking agreement with the struc- 

 A ture of some Hymenoph^'llaceae (e. g. Tncho- 



manes radieans and T. reniforme) an agreement 

 which is much emphasized by the fact that 

 in several species of Zyfjopicris {Z. scandens, 

 Z. Grayi. and Z. Brongniarii) the branching 

 was axillary, exactly as in the recent family.^) 

 In Zy(/opfens corriigafa [Bacliiopieris corrugata 

 of A\'illiamson), however, the branching 

 was more of the nature of a dichotomy. The 



^. .„ „ ^ . well-known double-anchor form of the petiolar 



Fis:. 13. Zuqopferis pin- . -,, • , . • .• p ,, t. • 



nata. A Group of spor- bundle IS characteristic of the genus. It is 



augia ill surface view, j^are to find any traces of the lamina in petri- 

 trausverse secüon^""\i> ^^^ specimens, but a large bipinnate frond 

 larged. After Renault, with flabelliform leaflets has been referred 



on good grounds, to the genus, under the 

 name of Zygopteris pinnata (Grand' Eurj'). Scale-leaves, of simple 

 structure, w^ere observed by Stenzel and Renault in Z. scandens 

 and Z. Brongniarti, and I have recentlj^ found them in the British 

 species Z. Grayi and Z. corrugata.-) They occur on the leaf-bases, 

 as well as on the stem, and may perhaps be compared to the Aphlebiae 

 of other Fern-like plants of Palaeozoic age. The fructifications were 

 discovered by Renault (1876); the sporangia, which are even larger 

 than those of Botryopteris forensis. are borne as in that plant on a 

 special fertile frond; thej are characterized by the fact that the 

 broad, multiseriate annulus is present on both sides of the pyriform 



^) See Boodle. Comp. Auat. of Hymeiiophyllaceae, Schizaeaceae and Gleichenia- 

 ceae. I. Anat. of Hymenophyllaceae. Ann. of Bot., Vol. XIV, 1900, p. 487. 



^) The doubts expressed on p. 284 of my "Studies in Fossil Botany" are thus 

 removed. 



