160 REPORT—1883. 
Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor W. C. W1LLIAM- 
son, Mr. Tuos. Hick, and Mr. W. Cas (Secretary), appointed 
for the purpose of investigating the Fossil Plants of Halifaa. 
WE regret to have to state that our efforts to investigate the Fossil 
Carboniferous Flora of Halifax have been less successful this year than 
in the previous one. The reason for this is sufficiently obvious. All the 
more abundant objects characteristic of the locality are now well under- 
stood. The gaps that need to be filled are connected either with the 
rarer forms, or with unusual conditions of the more common plants. 
Nevertheless we have not been wholly without success. We have 
obtained clear evidence of the existence of at least two new types of 
Rachiopteris—which are most probably stems or petioles of ferns. A 
third one is a curious stem, in which the vascular bundle approaches 
that of a Lepidodendron in its defined cylindrical form, surrounding a 
cellular pith, a condition rarely seen amongst ferns. But we have found 
no traces of leaves attached to it, as is always the case with the young 
twigs of Lepidodendra. 
Another stem is an undoubted Lepidodendron of a very interesting 
type. Its central vasculo-medullary axis corresponds closely with that of 
Lepidodendron selaginoides, except that the barred or reticulated medul- 
lary cells of that species are absent from the new plant. Like L. selagi- 
noides the new form has a secondary exogenous vascular zone of barred 
vessels, but of a primitive type that is intermediate between the perfect 
condition of that zone in L. selaginoides, and its extremely rudimentary 
form in L. Harcourtii. In the transverse section the zone appears more 
perfectly and regularly developed than in L. Harcourtii, which plant it 
also resembles in the extremely small size of its vessels; but its most 
characteristic feature is shown in the longitudinal section, in which we 
find these numerous secondary vessels meandering as they ascend 
through a mass of cellular tissue, so that in such sections cells and vessels 
appear to be intermingled without order or special arrangement. 
We have obtained a series of roots or rootlets which have much of the 
general aspect of those of Stigmaria. But they possess the very dis- 
tinctive feature of giving off secondary rootlets in perfect verticils, a 
very unusual feature in fossil root-organs. We have also obtained further 
illustrations of the presence of tylose-cells in the interior of the tissues 
of other plants. For some time we were only acquainted with these 
curious growths in the interiors of the vessels of ferns. But we have 
now obtained them in the vessels of a Lepidodendron stem, and also in 
the cortical cells of some ferns, as well as in those of the Lyginodendron 
Oldhamsinm. We may further add that new fragments continue to 
be met with, showing the existence in these beds of strange forms of 
plant-life, of the nature and general morphology of which we are wholly 
ignorant. Snch fragments are like a few scattered grains of gold at 
some new ‘diggings.’ They afford a strong stimulus to further research, 
since they are proofs that unrevealed treasures continue to be hidden in 
these Yorkshire and Lancashire carboniferous nodules. 
