THE ERIAN OR DEVONIAN FORESTS. 



75 



Another very remarkable fern, which some botanists have 

 supposed may belong to a higher group than the ferns, is 

 Megalopteris (Fig. 26). 



Some of the Erian ferns attained to the dimensions of 

 tree-ferns. Large stems of these, which must have floated 

 out far from land, have been found by Newberry in the 

 marine limestone of Ohio (Caulopteris antiqua and C. 

 peregrina, Newberry),* and Prof. Hall has found in the 



FIG. 25. An Erian tree-fern. Caulopteris Lockwoodi^ Dawson, 

 reduced. (From a specimen from Gilboa, New iork.) 



Upper Devonian of Gilboa, New York, the remains of a 

 forest of tree-ferns standing in situ with their great 

 masses of aerial roots attached to the soil in which they 

 grew (Caulopteris Lockwoodi, Dn.).f 



These aerial roots introduce us to a new contrivance 

 for strengthening the stems of plants by sending out into 

 the soil multitudes of cord-like cylindrical roots from 





* "Journal of the Geological Society," 1871. 



Ibid. 



