FOSSIL PLANTS. 457 



GENUS CAULOPTERIS, LL and Hutt. 



111. Geol. Rep., vol. ii, p. 458. 



CAULOPTERIS OBTECTA, Sp. nov. 



PL xxviii, fig. 1 to 4. 



STEMS of small size, varying in thickness from four to six 

 inches, entirely covered with long, linear, cylindrical, aerial 

 rootlets, attached to it without relative order of position, bear- 

 ing at. their base an elongated oval scar. Branch scars dis- 

 tant, oval obtuse at both ends, two to three inches long, one 

 to one and a-half inches broad, marked lengthwise by broad 

 striae, or marks of aerial roots. The rootlets are regularly cy- 

 lindrical, one foot long or more, apparently tubulose, without 

 trace of a medial vascular line, closely appressed to each other, 

 and upon each other in the same downward direction, and so 

 entirely covering the stem that their cicatrices are rarely dis- 

 tinguishable. The branch scars are distant, as seen figs. 1 and 

 2, which show both sides of the same part of a stem, and indi- 

 cate the relative position of the scars. The order of position 

 appears to be as one to four, but is ebscured by the flattening 

 of the stem, whose thickness is, by compression, reduced to 

 one inch at the upper part, and to two inches at the lower 

 part. A branch scar and part of stem are figured, natural 

 size, fig. 3. The distance between these branch scars is so 

 great, especially toward the base of the stem, that a number 

 of specimens, some as large as one foot square, were collected 

 at Colchester, and, though closely scrutinized, did not show 

 any trace of them. 



58 



