Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift. 1920. Bd. 14, H. 2 — 3. 



PSILOPHYTON (?) HEDEI N. SP., PROBABLY A 



LAND-PLANT, FROM THE SILURIAN OF 



GOTHLAND. 



BY 



T. G. HALLE. 



With 1 plate. 



Ill the summer öf 1918, Dr. J. E. Hede of the Swedish Geolo- 

 gical Survey discovered, in Ihe Silurian of Gothland, a fossil which 

 seems to represent the remains of a land-plant. In view of the 

 attenlion which the earliest land-flora has received lately, this 

 fossil appeais to be of some interest, chiefly on account of its 

 geological age. We now know a number of well characterized 

 plants from the Lower Devonian: our knowledge of some of the 

 most important forms, described b}' Kidston and Lang, is, indeed, 

 unusLially complete. The supposed land-plants described from the 

 Silurian, on the other hand, are either very doubtful or else their 

 geological age is far from setlled. It is not intended here to 

 discuss any of these doubtful lecords of Silurian land-plants but 

 only to describe the fossil now found in the island of Gothland. 



The single specimen known was found by Dr. Hede — who has 

 kindly communicated the geological data given here — a short 

 dislance SE of Petesviken in the parish of Hablingbo. The rock is a 

 fairly soft, slightly calcareous gray shale containing only a little 

 mica and arenaceous material. In the same bed were found, 

 among other marine fossils, two species of graptolites: Monograptus 

 chimaera Barr. and M. Xilssoni Barr. Chiefly on account of these 

 species. Dr. Hede regards the bed as belonging to the Lower 

 Ludlow (Upper Salopian). 



