14 DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE 



rise to the roots which, according to Seward, Kidston & Gwynne- 

 Vaughan, and others, were all diarch (see text-fig. 4), though 

 some writers maintain that they were pentarch. The diarch 

 rootlets, as Seward (1894, p. 153) points out, militate against 

 the view that the plant is of Marattiaceous affinities. 



The habit of the plant may have resembled the unique living 

 JJemitelia. The aggregate of stems and roots must have had 

 much the external appearance of an ordinary rough-exteriored 

 tree-fern. They must have grown to the size of a tree-fern 



Text-fig. 4. Teiup&kt/a /?<>>>/<", Kidston & Ghrynne-Vfttighan. Transverse 

 section of root showing the diarch xylem. After Kidston & Gwynne- 

 Vmighan. 



also, for many of the fossil fragments reach a large size, and 

 Fitton (1836) describes and figures one liritish example which 

 was 9 feet long and 12 inches in diameter, though crushed. 



Kidston & (Jwynne-Vaughan consider that at the top of this 

 upright " false-stem " the individual axes stood out separately. 

 " The free stems at the top must, have grown upright, and at 

 first their root-coatings would not have been of even thickness 

 all round. A buttress of roots of considerable thickness would 

 already have been formed on the root-bearing side of the stem 

 before the leaf-bearing side was covered at all, and for a long 

 time the coating on the latter side must have been thinner than 



