154 TEMPSKYA. 
the Quadersandstein of Bohemia. He adopts the specific term 
varians, and includes under this species Z. pulchra, Cord., TZ. 
macrocaulis, Cord., 7. microrhiza, Cord., and 7. Schimpert, Cord., 
also Palmacites varians, Cord., and Fasciculites varians, Ung. 
Velenoysky’s description of the Bohemian fossils agrees to a 
large extent with the characters of the English specimens of 
T. Schimperi; the surface shows occasional grooves traversing a 
felted mass of adventitious roots; the latter are found to consist 
of a central vascular axis surrounded by several layers of scler- 
enchymatous elements. The groove-like depressions are regarded 
as moulds of larger root axes, which frequently branch and break 
up into such a general felted mass as occurs on the outside of a 
Dicksonia antarctiea stem. The same author alludes to the 
apparent absence of a central vascular axis in Zempskya, and goes 
on to describe a specimen from the Prague Museum which throws 
fresh light on the structure of the species. He speaks of having 
examined 100 specimens of the fossil without discovering any 
trace of a central vascular cylinder. The central axis, as pre- 
served in the Prague specimen, seems to agree in all essential 
respects with that of Protopteris punctata,’ and shows the same 
leaf-trace figure on the petiole scars. 
Reference is made to Feistmantel’s description of a specimen 
in which an outer mass of roots was detached from a central core 
of P. Sternbergii. Finally, Velenovsky concludes that the form 
Tempskya must be regarded as having reference to such states of 
fossilization in which only the lower parts of a fern root-stock have 
been preserved ; he speaks of his examination of the root-stock of 
Dicksonia antarctica as confirmatory of this view. 
If this connection of the vascular axis of the Protopteris type 
with the Zempskya root-masses be thoroughly established, we must 
regard the numerous imperfect specimens of Z. Schimperi, so 
abundant in the English beds, as simply aggregations of roots, 
and probably of some other structures, which in the living plants 
enclosed a Protopterts form of vascular cylinder. 
Whether this eonclusion of Velenovsky be established or not, it 
is a striking fact that in the ease of English and North German 
specimens of Zempskya no example has been found which shows 
anything of the nature of a Protopteris vascular axis. In the 
1 Abh. k. béhm. Ges. Wiss. vii. Folg. vol, ii. 1888, p. 20. 
