456 PALAEONTOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



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STIGMARIOIDES SELAGO, Sp. nov. 



PL xxxi, fig. 3 and 36. 



AN apparently cylindrical branch or root, whose essential 

 axis, about half an inch thick, is tapering downwards, dicho- 

 tomously forking, covered with long, narrow, linear hairs or 

 scales (fig. 3 5 enlarged), bearing from the end of the divisions 

 long, hard, quadrangular, tubular, thick, naked leaves ?, with 

 a thick, medial, vascular vein, and a narrowlv striated surface. 



These leaves or roots are similar in form to those of Lepidophloios, but much 

 longer. The figure exactly represents the specimen, which is finely preserved 

 in the middle of a concretion. But the union of these hard, smooth, cylindri- 

 cal leaves with a stem or root entirely covered with hairs, and from the point 

 of alternate divisions, is so peculiar, that nothing among fossil or living vege- 

 tables, that I know, can be compared to it. It is uncertain whether these hard 

 leaves represent rootlets of some kind, or root-stalks or leaves, and possibly the 

 specimen may be figured the wrong way. By its straight, horizontal, narrow, 

 linear hairs, the part of the stem which bears them resembles the species pub- 

 lished in vol. ii, of this Report, p. 446, pi. xli, fig. 3, under the name of Sclag- 

 inites uncinnatus (1). 



In a concretion from Mazon creek. 



(1) Under the name of Rhizomopteris, Prof. Schimper has published, loc. cit, p 699, 

 two species formerly referred to Selaginites, one of them, S. uncinnatus, Lesqx., III. Geol. 

 Rep., p. 446, pi. xli, fig. 3, which he considers as rhizomas of ferns. These two last spe- 

 cies of ours should be referred t ) the same genera. Phizomoplerls (SelaginUefi) Rrdmanni, 

 Germ., has been found in the concretions of Mazon creek in well preserved specimens. 



