466 PALEONTOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



PAL^EOXYRIS CORRUGATA, Sp. nov. 



PI. xxvii, fig. 13. 



Its form is, like that of the former, spindle-shaped, more elongated, and gradu- 

 ally tapering to both its ends. Its surface, irregularly folded and wrinkled, 

 has not any trace of spiral fibres. In its upper neck, the body appears passing 

 into parallel blades, while downwards it is bordered by two leaf-like appenda- 

 ges of a coriaceous substance. These linear blades are somewhat concave, the 

 one bending downwards, the other upwards, like the remains of spiral, still half 

 bent laminae. The folds of the body do not show any peculiar form like the 

 outline of a hard substance inclosed, but they are mere irregular wrinkles, like 

 those which could be formed upon the outside of a crumpled empty bag. 



From what is said in the above descriptions, it is evident that the true nature 

 of the organs placed under this generic name is unknown. They cannot have 

 any relation to the flower-bearing spikes of a Xyris, for they do not show any 

 trace of scale-like bracts, forming a flower head, or of points of attachment of 

 such scales ; nothing that could be compared to flowers or to their receptacles. 

 If these bodies were more regular, and appearing as though containing some 

 nutlet, they could be compared, by the rhomboidal marks of the surface, to 

 some fruits of palm, like those of the genus Mauritia or Lepidocarpum. But 

 in all the vegetable organs of this kind, the disposition of the scale-like sur- 

 face of the walls is far more regular than it is in ours. It is not quite evident 

 whether the spiral lines marked on the outside are formed by the twisting of 

 leaf-like blades, or by mere thread-like filaments. The variety in the distances 

 between these lines, as seen fig. 10, tends to support this last supposition, while 

 the lateral projections of the borders, in fig. 11, and the leaf-like appendages 

 seen at the point and base of our two last species seem, on the contrary, to in- 

 dicate a conformation by the spiral winding of grass-like leaves. In this case, 

 it could be supposed that these bodies represent rhizomas of some plant like 

 Cordctites, whose unfolding of the leaves is in a spiral, and which might be 

 seen already folded in that way in the embryonic or radiculose state ? After 

 all, they may belong to the animal rather than to the vegetable kingdom, and 

 represent envelopes formed in that shape by some kind of insects for inclosing 

 the larvas. Their irregularity seems to dictate this conclusion. The two fig- 

 ures given by Count Sternberg in Vcrs., 2, p. 189, pi. 59, fig. 10 and 11, of 

 Paleeoxyris Munsteri, represent a species far different from ours ; but if the 

 figures are exact, they distinctly show that the spindle-shaped body is an en- 

 velope, formed by the twisting of three or four leaf-like blades, for at the upper 

 and lower ends, where the twisting ceases, these blades separate, and are seen 



