10 FOSSIL MARINE PLANTS LESQUEREUX. 



by tlie work of animals, nor by the water in its motion, nor by a kind of 

 deformation or crystallization in the clay by clie lical agency. 1 see 

 in them odd or exceptional forms of marine plants like those discov- 

 ered at the base of the coal measures between the Devonian and Car- 

 boniferous, five of which are represented in the Coal Flora, /. c, pi. B, 

 figs. 1-8, all organisms whose relations or affinity to any kind of vege- 

 table remains is as yet undiscovered, and which for that reason have 

 been described under the new generic names Conostichus and Ai^terophy- 

 cus. Their reference to marine vegetables has not been contested. 



In pursuing my researches for the same purpose of procuring evi- 

 dence on the real nature of the bodies under consideration, I have rep- 

 resented upon the plate six of them whose essential difference, merely 

 in their size, appears to be the result of a gradual development or of 

 growth, and of their texture, which is an agglomeration of cellular fila- 

 ments. They seem to have been originally simple globular, vesicular 

 rootless hydrophytes, like globular Ulvaceje, growing or increasing in 

 length, dividing at one end into two incipient sujall lobes, either inflated 

 or flattened by compression and enlarged as in Fig. 4, the whole body of 

 which measures 2<''" broad, 2J to 3"^" long. In Fig. 5 the inflated oblong 

 I)art is twice as long though of the same width, and the lobes of the 

 same character and composition ; the size of the whole organism being 

 5cm iQug .^jjj 2*^'" broad. Fig. 6 is altogether broader, but the lower 

 part is represented by a hollow impression, while the upper part or 

 the lobes remain exposed in relief. It is the only one of these numer- 

 ous fossil bodies of which the place of the lower or inflated part is a 

 concavity as deep as is the prominence in relief of the other specimens. 

 The modification is clearly the result of a casual splitting of the tough 

 leathery tegument of the vesicular part, and the destruction of its in- 

 ternal filaments or cellular matter. The cortical pellicle is seen irreg- 

 ularly folded and crumpled by compression' upon the concave surface, 

 like the skin of an emptied bladder. The borders of the pellicle are 

 seen at b, and a lacerated part of it at a. In Fig. 7 the outlines of the 

 inflated oblong bag are preserved; but part of the tegument being de- 

 stroyed by erosion it exposes to view the internal organization of the 

 body in irregularly curved bundles of filaments passing at right angles 

 from the axis toward the bodies. This internal organization is still 

 more clearly seen in Fig. 8, which has the texture of the body exposed 

 in its whole length by the more prolonged process of erosion. In Fig. 

 9 the organism has taken a dilferent form by the addition of a third or 

 intermed ate lobe and the narrowing downward of the bladderly part, 

 which leaves the central axis exposed like a pedicel. In this case the 

 basilar inflated part seems to have been absorbed for the formation of 

 the third lobe protruding between the lateral ones. The tegument of 

 the body is obscurely wrinkled, especially in the part covering th3 

 lobes, the wrinkles appearing as if produced by the exposure in relief 

 upon the pellicle of the filaments underneath. It is in the same manner 



