459 



and give them to the public for botanists to work upon. The 

 subject is surrounded with difficulties ; and, although it has been 

 my good fortune to meet with many specimens in a fair state of 

 preservation, the specimen, as a rule, when the internal structure 

 is well preserved, is in a fragmentary condition, and when several 

 parts of a plant are found connected together we are not favoured 

 with structure, as is the case of the beautiful fossil plant last 

 described.' 



Carboniferous Flora. Part IV. 1875, PP- 9^ and 99. General 

 Observations on Sigillaria^ Anabathra, Diploxylon, and Stig- 

 maria. 



' Ever since the time when the Fossil plants of the 



coal measures first attracted attention, Sigillaria has occupied a 

 chief place in the minds of botanists : for it is to be met with in 

 the strata near most seams of coal, in a more or less perfect state 

 of preservation. The trunks of this genus are of two kinds, 

 namely, those distinctly ribbed and furrowed with leaf-scars on 

 the ribs at greater or less distances, and those with the leaf-scars 

 contiguous, and covering the whole surface of the trunk \ both 

 having them in a spiral arrangement around the axis. Nearly one 

 hundred species have been described by different authors, who 

 have made numerous species out of the same trunk ; various parts 

 of it being in a bad or good state of preservation. No doubt, 

 when we are better acquainted with the true nature of the plant, 

 the number of species will be greatly reduced. 



' For a long time Sigillaria and Stigmaria were regarded as dis- 

 tinct genera of plants, and even now, on the Continent, some dis- 

 tinguished palaeontologists are disposed to remain of that opinion. 

 In the specimens first described by me, in the " Philosophical 

 Magazine" for 1844,* which were found in Mr. Littler's quarry, 

 near St. Helen's, Stigmaria was clearly traced to the trunks of the 

 large, irregularly ribbed and furrowed Sigillarise, showing little, if 

 any, traces of leaf-scars ; but it was there distinctly stated that 

 around these trunks smaller trunks were found standing, which 



1 Phil Mag., ser. 3, vol. xxiv. p. 168 ; and 1845, vol. xxvii. p. 241, &c, 



