t i 



91 



THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 





W 



That of Mr. Lot kwood is of larger size, but retains no remains of the 

 frond. It must have belont^od to a si)0('ics quite distinct from faw- 

 lopteria Loclcwoodi, but which may, like it, have been a tree-fern. 



2. Caulopte'iis anticjua, Newberry. — This is a flattened stem, on 

 a slab of limestone, containing liiachiopods, Trilobites, &c., of the 

 Corniferous limestone. It is about eighteen inches in length, and 

 three and a half inches in average breadth. The exposed side shows 

 about twenty-two large leaf -scars arranged spirally. Each leaf, 

 where broken off, has left a rough fracture ; and above this is a 

 semicircular impression of the petiole against the stem, which, as 

 well as the surface of the bases of the petioles, is longitudinally 

 striated or tuberculated. The structures are not preserved, but 

 merely the outer epidermis, as a coaly film. The stem altogether 

 much resembles Caulopteris Peachii, but is of larger size. It differs 

 from C. Lockwoodi in the more elongated leaf-bases, and in the 

 leaves being more remotely placed; but it is evidently of the same 

 general character with that species. 



3. Caulopteris (Protopteris) peregrina, Newberry. — This is a 

 much more interesting species than the last, as belonging to a ge- 

 neric or subgeneric form not hitherto recognised below the Carbonif- 

 erous, and having its minute structure in part preserved. 



The specimens are, like the last, on slabs ot marine limestone of 

 the Corniferous formation, and flattened. One represents an uj)per 

 portion of the stem with leaf-scars and remains of petioles ; another 

 a lower portion, with aerial roots. The upper part is three inches 

 in diameter, and about a foot in length, and shows thirty leaf-scars, 

 which are about three-fourths of an inch wide, and rather less in 

 depth. The upper part presents a distinct r'>unded and sometimes 

 double marginal line, sometimes with a slight depression in the mid- 

 dle. The lower part is irregular, and when most perfect shows seven 

 slender va«<^nlar bundles, passing obliquely downward into the stem. 

 The more [. 3t leaf-bases have the structure preserved, and show 

 a delicate, thin-walled, oval parenchyma, while the vascular bundles 

 show scalariform vessels with short bars in several rows, in the man- 

 ner of many jnodern ferns. Some of the scars show traces of the 

 hippocrepian mark characteristic of I^otnpferis ; and the arrange- 

 ment of the vascular bundles at the base of the scars is the same as 

 in that genus, as are also the general form and arrangement of the 

 scars. ( 1 careful examination, the species is indeed very near to the 

 typical P. Stembergii, as figured by Corda and Schimper.* 



* Corda, " Beitrago," PI. 48, copied by Schimper, PI. 52. 



