THE 



MONTHLY MICKOSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



APEIL 1, 1873. 



I. — Some Bemarks on a Minute Plant found in an Incrustation 

 of Carbonate of Lime. 



By E. L. Maddox, M.D., H.F.K.M.S. 



(Bead before the Royal Microscopical Society, March 5, 1873.) 

 Plate XII. 



The interesting substance popularly called " petrified moss," which 

 forms the subject of the present communication, was brought from 

 a spring at Beedwater, the property of the Duke of Northumberland, 

 situated about fifteen miles from the nearest market-town, Jed- 

 borough, by an intelligent lad, Wm. Anstiss, who on his return 

 here presented some of the same to a lady of this neighbourhood, 

 who is greatly interested in microscopic and natural history pursuits, 

 Miss Davies, of Peartree Vicarage, and who, towards the close of 

 November last year, kindly forwarded some specimens to the writer 

 for examination. Some time after the receipt of the specimens, Miss 

 Davies kindly sent the lad to me, affording thus an opportunity of 

 obtaining additional particulars. The lad had been engaged by a 

 party on a shooting excursion over this property, and whilst occupied 

 in his duties, had his attention directed by the gamekeeper to the 

 strange masses seen in the foot-bed of a spring that flowed down 

 a moss-covered bank at about 4 or 5 feet above the level of a stream, 

 into which it ran at the distance of a few yards. This spring was 

 the only one in which he noticed anything peculiar, though there 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XII. 



Fig. 1. — Supposed to be an entire plant. 



2. — Shows two different conceptacles, the round one, possibly "oogonal," 



and the oblong one, " antheroidal " in function, though doubtful if 



belouging to the minute plant. 

 3. — Represents a large oblong cell containing a few highly refringent 



cellular and narrow curvilinear bodies. 

 4. — Is considered as a very early stage of Fig. 1, or to represent a very 



young plant of Botrydium minutum. 

 5. — Possibly belongs to the early condition of some other plant ; its tubular 



portion is distinctly septate. 

 <3.— One of the round reddish bodies found with the minute plant ; its nature 



is doubtful, whether a minute spore or ovum. 

 7. — Apparently a rather earlier stage of the condition of the nearly mature 



cell represented in Fig. 2. 

 VOL. IX. M 



