152 FILICES. 



dentate, and overlap and quite conceal the rhachis. These pinnae bear the 

 sporangia, which are present in large numbers and are attached to the upper 

 surface. That these small ovoid bodies cannot be seeds of a gymnosperm 

 is proved by K. Feistmantel's discovery of numerous spores inside them. 

 No annulus has been observed in their wall, which is formed of several 

 layers of cells. Taking all this into consideration, we may agree with 

 Stur, who will not hear of a comparison with Cycadeae or Coniferae. On 

 the other hand, the botanist, when he looks at the figures, will not see too 

 many or too obvious points of resemblance to Botrychium or Helmin- 

 thostachys. 



Under the name of Aphlebiocarpus Schutzei Stur l has described a 

 remarkable but unfortunately very imperfect fructification, which must 

 without doubt have belonged to a fern. A piece of a repeatedly branched 

 leaf-axis bears at the extremity of the branches stellately-lobed foliar for- 

 mations, which are attached by their central point and have here and there 

 on their surface small protuberant insertion-points. The lobes inclining 

 towards one another from the first like the leaves of an involucre, enclosed 

 a number of sporangia, as is seen in other specimens ; these sporangia ac- 

 cording to Stur were ovoid and without an annulus, and resembled those of 

 Senftenbergia. But when Stur attempts to found a formal history of de- 

 velopment on these facts, and makes these formations be at first open and 

 then close up to form a capsule and develope sporangia, he is pursuing a 

 path on which I cannot follow him. As little can I accept his reasons for 

 considering that the genus in question belongs to Marattiaceae, and for 

 establishing a special sub-group, Aphlebiocarpeae, to receive it. The 

 farthest that we can go in this matter, is to admit the proof that the 

 sporangium is like that of Senftenbergia ; for Stur's favourite comparison 

 of the stellately-lobed envelope with Aphlebiae, even if proved or only 

 made very probable, which is not the case, would still be far from support- 

 ing the view that the fructification in question belongs to Marattiaceae, 

 since such a conclusion, as was shown above, is based on the decidedly 

 erroneous supposition, that the Aphlebiae are peculiar to this family and 

 homologous with their stipular formations. We will hope that further 

 discoveries may throw more light on the structure of this remarkable 

 fossil. 



If, as the foregoing remarks have endeavoured to show, we are able 

 to recognise with more or less certainty a fair number of genera of Euspo- 

 rangiate Filicineae, our success in determining the Leptosporangiate forms 

 has been much more limited. As far as I know, scarcely a single specimen 

 of the latter kind above suspicion has been obtained from the Coal-measures ; 

 this is the more remarkable because we might think that the characters of 



1 Stur (5), t. 27, ;4), p. 21, :3 , p. is. 



