366 PLANT-REMAINS OF DOUBTFUL AFFINITY, ETC. 



course on the tangential section as vertical lines. Longitudinal sections of 

 the kind were figured by Royle, and good descriptions of them are given 

 in the Palaeontologia Indica 1 . If the radial fracture passes through the 

 intervals between these plates, then there appears on each side of the 

 central strip of coal a series of fractures with rectangular bounding lines 

 passing through the stone ; and the transverse dividing planes in these frac- 

 tures, which do not correspond on the two sides, also seem sometimes to con- 

 tain traces of coal. More minute examination of the best specimens studied 

 by me would, I believe, bring to light some further remains of structure. 



So far as it is possible to judge of the matter from mere outside view, 

 it seems to me that Bunbury, whose opinion is shared by O. Feistmantel, is 

 quite right in supposing that the Vertebrariae were roots or stems with a 

 central solid axis and a less compact cortical cylinder, and that prismatic 

 intercellular spaces in the latter were rilled with the substance of the stone, 

 while the diaphragms were preserved in the form of bands of coal. But 

 whether, as Feistmantel assumes, they really belong as roots to Phyllotheca 

 and so to Schizoneura Gondwanensis, with which they are usually associated 

 in the beds, must remain at present undetermined. Specimens of greater 

 thickness are very rare ; a figure of such a cylinder is given in O. Feist- 

 mantel -. The form which Schmalhausen 3 describes as Vertebraria, from 

 the Lower Oolite of Siberia, can scarcely belong to this group. The figure 

 gives the impression of pinnae of a fern-leaf rolled up after the manner of 

 Scolecopteris, but the description of the remains does not well admit of this 

 interpretation. 



The remains named Aethophyllae, of which two species have been 

 found in the quarry in the Buntsandstein at Sulzbad in the Vosges, are as 

 remarkable as they are little understood. No objects certainly belonging 

 to this group have, as far as I know, been found elsewhere. They appear 

 indeed sometimes in lists of Triassic plants from different localities, but in 

 all these cases it is found that the determinations rest on quite unsatis- 

 factory linear fragments of leaves. The two species, Aethophyllum stipu- 

 lare, Brongn., and Ae. speciosum, Schpr, the former of which had been 

 previously described by Brongniart 4 in 1828, have been carefully examined 

 by Schimper 5 . Aethophyllum speciosum is an acropetally branched stem 

 more than two feet long, bearing linear leaves that lie scattered about on 

 the slab of stone, and having their main axis and lateral branches terminated 

 by long cylindrical spikes which form the fructifications. The spikes appear 

 to be composed of numerous small lanceolate acuminate scales, but these 

 through imperfect preservation are very indistinct. Aethophyllum stipulare 



1 Pal. Ind. Ser. xn, n, p. 72. 2 O. Feistmantel (1), in, t.6, f. i. s Schmalhausen (1), 



P- 53, t. 7, ff. 15, 16. * Brongniart (9), p. 455 ; t. 18, f. i. 5 Schimper (3), p. 37 ; tt. 



19, 20, and (1), vol. ii i, p. 51. 



