78 BRITISH FOSSILS. 



structure, and are found with the P. anglicus in Forfarshire and 

 Perthshire ; also, with P. ludensis at Kidderminster, and P. proUe- 

 maticus at Ludlow. 



Four fine specimens lent us by Dr. Balfour, of the Botanic Gar- 

 dens, Edinburgh, show clearly that the bodies in question cannot be 

 referred to seed vessels or receptacles, or indeed any other portions 

 of a plant. There is no trace of a style on any of the carpels of the 

 supposed fruit, nor of a leafy involucrum below it. 



They are rounded masses, one to two inches broad, and composed 

 of numerous oval or hexagonal areee, a line or two in diameter, 

 which are now flat, but appear as if they had been compressed from 

 a nearly globular shape, not crowded over each other, but arranged 

 in nearly one plane so as to form a disk. 



A long pedicle, fully a line broad, is attached near the centre of 

 the disk so formed, or sometimes nearer its margin ; and from the 

 point of attachment the surface of the general enclosing membrane 

 is radiated or plaited to the margin, but only on one side of the 

 disk. The plaits are depressed lines, dichotomising and inosculating 

 a little, but seem to have no reference whatever to the arrangement 

 of the ova, which they cross without being interfered with by them. 



The appearances presented would be best explained by the sup- 

 position of the fossils having been membranous disks of only a 

 moderate thickness, and containing a single series of ova in the 

 thickness of the disk. They are not superimposed one on the other, 

 as they would have been had they been contained in a pyriform sac, 

 but set at equal short distances apart, as if kept in their places by 

 the membrane of the disk that enveloped them. 



Localities. LOWER OLD KED SANDSTONE, Balruddery, Perth- 

 shire ; and Leysmill near Arbroath, Reswallie, Tealing, Carmylie, 

 and other places in Forfarshire. The specimens are chiefly in the 

 collections of Lord Kinnaird, Mr. Powrie, and of the Watt Institu- 

 tion, Dundee. One or two are in the Museum of Pract. Geology. 



