248 SIGILLARIEAE. 



dichotomous. Weiss in the year 1869 could only cite three figures of these 

 branched stem-fragments, two of which belong to Sigillaria hexagona 1 and 

 one to S. elegans 2 , and not one of these figures is quite above suspicion. 

 Dawson's drawing is too small and too imperfect, and the others do not 

 clearly show the line of separation on the inner side between the two 

 branches, which terminate here with the zigzag bounding line of a longi- 

 tudinal rib. These figures may therefore be quite as well explained by 

 supposing that a simple piece of stem had been separated by crushing into 

 two parts. Little more has been added since that time as far as I know. 

 But we have at last an absolutely certain and convincing case in Sigillaria 

 Eugenii, Stur, from the Culm (Ostrau beds), which has been studied by 

 Stur 3 . Here the mould and the cast of the bifurcating stem are both 

 preserved, and it is stated that we have similar remains also of Sigillaria 

 Brardii 4 . 



While there can therefore be no doubt of the occurrence of dichotomous 

 branching in Sigillariae, it can also be shown on the other hand that 

 certain stems were simple and unbranched throughout. Much the most 

 important specimen of this kind was found in constructing the Friedrichs- 

 thal tunnel in the mountain-district of Saarbriicken, and was examined by 

 Goldenberg. There is the more reason to regret that a connected account 

 of the fossil has never been published, and that we are still dependent 

 on the scattered occasional notices of this author. He says 5 : 'Thus 

 among other things in the construction of the railway near Neunkirchen 

 a regular forest of Sigillariae was exposed to view in the state in which 

 it lived and had its being. The roots of these plants lay on the same 

 geological level, and the stems were still in their original erect position 

 on this their old ground and soil. Most of these stems belonging to the 

 Sigillariae with broadly-fluted rind, Sigillaria reniformis, &c, were from 

 two to three feet in diameter at the base, and ended above in a rounded 

 apex without showing any sign of branching.' Two only of these complete 

 stems have been figured 6 . The first of them, belonging to Sigillaria 

 reniformis, was rooted in the ground, was from five to six metres in height, 

 and was unusually thick. Quite unbranched it contracts rather suddenly 

 into a dome-shaped termination. The other, Goldenberg's 7 Sigillaria 

 cactiformis, which is afterwards merged in the allied form S. reniformis 

 and is not mentioned again, is broken off above the root-system, but has 

 its apex well preserved and fashioned as in the preceding species. In its 

 upper portion occurs the interpolation, mentioned above on p. 242, of four 

 longitudinal ribs. Its dimensions are however much smaller ; it is eighteen 



1 Brongniart (1), vol. i, t. 158; von Rohl (1), t. 28, f. 17. a Dawson (8), t. 7, f. 26 d. 



3 -Stur (5), p. 296, t. 25, ff. 2, 3. * Grand' Eury (1), p. 154. * Goldenberg (1), p. 27. 



6 Goldenberg (1), t. B, f. 13, and t. 4, f. i. 7 Goldenberg (1), vol. i, p. 28. 



