154 TEMPSKTA. 



the Quadersandstein of Bohemia. He adopts the specific term 

 varians, and includes under this species T. pulchra, Cord., T. 

 macrocaulis, Cord., T. microrhiza, Cord., and T. Schimperi, Cord., 

 also Palmacites varians, Cord., and Fasciculites variam, Ung. 

 Velenovsky '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 antarctica stem. The same author alludes to the 

 apparent absence of a central vascular axis in Tempskya, 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. Sternlergii. 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 Tempskya root-masses be thoroughly established, we must 

 regard the numerous imperfect specimens of T. 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 Protopteris form of vascular cylinder. 



"Whether this conclusion of Velenovsky be established or not, it 

 is a striking fact that in the case of English and North German 

 specimens of Tempskya no example has been found which shows 

 anything of the nature of a Protopteris vascular axis. In the 



1 Abh. k. bobm. Ges. Wiss. vii. Folg. vol. ii. 1888, p. 25. 



