On the Fructification 0/ Eusphenopteris tenella, etc. 131 



If the system of classification according to fruit Ijc 

 adopted with E. tenella, I believe a new genus would be 

 required for its reception ; but for the foregoing reasons I prefer 

 retaining it with the other Eusphenopteroids till more is 

 known of tlieir fruit. Even were there evidence for a complete 

 classification founded on the fruit, it would prove of little 

 value to the working palaeontologist, who has, in the great 

 majority of cases, to deal with barren specimens. 



2. SpTienopteris microcarpa (Lesq.). (PL I., figs. 7-14.) 



Atlas of Coal Flora of Pennsylvania, pi. xlvii., fig. 2 ; Coal Flora of 

 Pennsylvania, p. 281. 



About two years ago Mr J. Bennie handed to me for 

 examination a small specimen of this fern, beautifully fruited, 

 but which at the time I was unable to identify. Shortly 

 after I saw a copy of the " Atlas to the Coal Flora of Penn- 

 sylvania and the United States," by Lesquereux, which was 

 published in 1879. On plate xlvii., fig. 2, of this work a 

 small Sphenopteroid is illustrated under the name of Sx>h. 

 microcarpa ; but from the figure given I could not definitely 

 determine that the plant collected by Mr Bennie belonged to 

 the same species, and at that time no description of it had 

 appeared. This lack, however, was supplied in 1880, when 

 the same author published the " Description of the Coal Flora 

 of the Carboniferous Formation," etc. He gives here a very 

 good description of the barren fronds ; and in regard to the 

 fertile it is stated that " each of the small obtuse teeth or 

 indentations on the borders of the lobes has, at the top of one 

 or two of the veinlets, small round elevated dots, which, when 

 seen with a glass, appear like sori. I consider them as fruc- 

 tifications, comparable, by their position at least, to the 

 fruit-dots of some Davallicc of our time — Leucostcgia for 

 example."* 



In the present specimen the fruit is exceptionally well 

 preserved, showing the outline of the cells which form the 

 walls of the sporangia (figs. 12, 13, and 14). 



* Loc. cif., p. 280. 



