of the Fossil Plants of the genus Sigillaria. 153 
The researches of Brongniart shew, that of all existing plants the Ferns 
approach the nearest to Sigil/aria, as regards the markings on the walls 
of the tubular tissue. Our own researches as to the foliage of this fossil, it 
will be remembered, carried us close up to the same plants. Associating 
these results with the conclusion we arrived at in the last paragraph, it 
seems to be a legitimate inference—allowing for certain modifications 
consequent on the union, that we have in this fossil the vascular system of a 
Fern, united to the radially arranged ligneous zone of certain Cycases. 
The gemus Sigillaria may, therefore, be concluded to be intermediate to 
the highest vascular Cryptogams, and the Cycadeous Gymnosperms. 
It is very much to be regretted, that, as yet, we possess No positive 
evidence regarding the fructification of Sigillaria: it is only required to 
have some knowledge on this point to enable us to decide whether this 
fossil proximated more to the Ferns than to the Zamias. 
With reference to the habit of Sigil/aria, various considerations war- 
rant the belief that it was essentially aquatic. The loose spongy na- 
ture of the soil in which this plant grew is clearly shewn by its mas- 
sive root-branches extending to such enormous distances, and its in- 
numerable fibrils spreading out in so regular a manner. Its possessing 
organs so characterised, and its growing in such a soil, clearly com- 
bine to prove that Sigil/aria not only lived in situations extremely lia- 
ble to inundations, but that it had powerful floods or freshets to con- 
tend against. 
If, in imagination, the reader will delineate a channelled stem of any 
height between twelve and a hundred feet,*—crowned with a pendant 
fern-like foliage,—furnished with wide-spreading thickly fibrilled roots, 
—and growing in some densely wooded swamp or “‘ bottom” of an an- 
cient Mississippi, I am strongly persuaded that he will have formed a to- 
lerably close restoration of a Sigillaria vegetating in its true habitat. 
* * * * * T trust that at some future period it will be in my power 
either to modify this restoration, or render it more complete.t 
* Since the first part of these “ Contributions” was published, I have learned 
that Mr Richard C. Taylor, formerly of this country, has discovered some stems 
of Sigillaria in the Schuylkill coal-field, which cannot have been less than a 
hundred feet in height. Vide “Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary” 
of the American Philosophical Society, p. 149-150. 
+ Mr Binney, who, it will be remembered, announced, at the Cork Meeting of 
the British Association, his discovery of a specimen of Sigillaria with roots 
which agree with Stigmaria, has subsequently published an interesting account 
on the same subject in the London Philosophical Magazine, (March 1844). It 
is singular,—and perhaps some will even lay hold of the circumstance, as being 
rather against the view which Mr Binney and myself advocate,—that in those 
specimens which exhibit a stem attached toa well developed root, although there 
can be no doubt as to the latter being Stigmaria, yet it is not so clear that the 
