112 Mr. R. Kidston on a new Species of 



or ConifeiEe. This view, which we here accept, has been 

 pointed out by Brongniart in his last work (' Tableau des 

 genres de vegeteaux Ibssiles, consideres sous le point de vue 

 de leur classiiication botauique et de leur distribution geolo- 

 gique '), and is thus stated by him : — 



" ' The plants really analogous to the recent Lycopods are 

 very few in number in the fossil state. 



" ' I do not know even one which, by its dhnensions and 

 the disposition of its leaves, may be compared with certainty 

 to the species of the genus Lycopodium properly so called ; 

 the greater part of the plants which I have designated or 

 which have been indicated as Lycopodites, are probably either 

 the upper portions of young branches of Lepidodendron or the 

 branches of Conifers. 



" ' Thus the greater part of the Lycopodites with dichotomous 

 branches from the Carboniferous formation appear to belong- 

 to the first class ; those species with distichous pinnate 

 branches evidently belong to Conifers of the genus Walchia. 

 The greater part of the species from more recent forma- 

 tions, as the Lias and Oolite, belong to this latter group ; such 

 are in particular Lycopodites Williamsonis and patens. 



" ' Among these there is, however, one species, which has 

 all the characters of a Lycopod, or perhaps more the character 

 of the genus Selaginella. This, the Lycopodites J'alcatuSy L. 

 & H.*, has lately been rightly separated, and from its delicate 

 and dichotomous branches, apparently distichous leaves (but 

 which are probably opposite and unequal), has all the appear- 

 ance and essential characters of the numerous species of the 

 genus Selaginella. 



" ' 1 know no species which resembles the true Lycopods, as 

 at present defined, nor the genus Tmesipteris.'' 



" We have therefore in Lycopodites the addition of a new 

 genus of fossil plants to the Carboniferous flora, which, 

 according to Brongniart, is at present only known by one species 

 from the Oolitic formation of Englandf. For the plant-remains 

 which hitherto have been described and figured from the 

 Carboniferous formation under the name of Lycopodites 

 Bronniiy longifolius^ &c., belong, as we have seen, to quite 

 other genera of plants, as they do not exhibit any of those 

 points which form the principal characteristics of club-mosses. 



" Many years ago 1 found plant-impressions in the Carbo- 

 niferous rocks of this neighbourhood (Saarbriick) which, in 

 the character of their growth, showed a great similarity to our 

 herbaceous Lycopods. At the Meeting of the Natur- 



* ' Fossil Flora,' pi. Ixi. 



t Lycopodites falcatus, L. & H. 



