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appear to notice, the pinnules are articulated upon the Htem, and 

 leave scars where they have fallen oflF. When in Belfjist last 

 summer I was much interested by finding in Prof. Thomson's 

 collection ;i specimen from Caithness, which shows a plant appa- 

 rently of this kind, with the same long narrow pinnae or leaflets, 

 attached, however, to thicker stems, and rolled up in a circinate 

 manner. It seems to be a plant in vernation, and the parts are 

 too much crowdi'd and pressed to<;ether to admit of being accu- 

 rately figured or described ; but I think 1 can scarcely be deceived 

 as to its true niture. The circinate arrangement in this case 

 would favour a relationship to ferns ; but some Lycopodiaceous 

 plants also roll themselvea in this way, and so do the branches 

 of the plants of the genus PsUophijtun.'' 



No figure of the plant was given, and Mr. Carruthers, if he 

 noticed the reierenec, very probably did not connect it with the 

 plant wliieh he received i'rom Sir Philip Egerton. His figure 

 however, published in tiie Journal of Botany for 187IJ, leaves no 

 room to doubt that he has had in his possession the counterpart 

 of Thomson's specimen, of which a figure is given in this paper. 

 My interpretation of it diifers considerably from his, and as the 

 matter is of some palaeontological interest, I shall proceed to 

 describe the specimen from njy point of view. 



The speeiiuen consists of a short erect stem, on which are 

 placed somewhat stout alternate branches, extending obliquely 

 outward and then curving inward in a circinate manner. The 

 lower ones appear to produce on their inner sides short lateral 

 branchlets, and upon these and also upon the curved extremities 

 of the branches, are long narrow linear leaves placed in a crowded 

 manner, and which are the " tufts of linear bodies " referred to 

 by Mr. Carruthers. The specimen is thus not a spike of fruc- 

 tification but a young stem or branch in vernation, and which 

 when unrolled would be of the form of those peculiar pinnate 

 LycopoiUU'H of which L. Vannxemii of the American Devonian 

 and L. pennirfonnis of the European Lower Carboniferous are 

 the types, and it shows, what might have been anticipated from 

 other specimens, that they were low tufted plants, circinate in 

 vernation. The short stem of this plant is simply furrowed, and 

 bears no resemblance to the detached branch of Lycopodites 

 Milleri which lies at right angles to it on the same slab (see 

 figure). As to the afl&nities of the singular type of plants to 

 which this specimen belongs, I may quote from my Report on 



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