FLORA OF THE TRINITV FORMATION. 337 



toward one of the poles. At what may be regarded as the proximal 

 pole or stem end they he on the surface, producing a fluted appearance 

 in the polar depression or concavity. 



Rauff leaves the problem of its true nature unsolved and proposes 

 no new name, but he regards Mr. Hill's reference of it to Araucarites or 

 to any conifer as probably erroneous. He does not deny its possible 

 polyzoan nature, but finds analogies with the protozoan forms Recep- 

 taculites and Isohadites, which he had been studying. These possess 

 organs somewhat similar to those that occupied the tubes of Porocystis, 

 and which he calls radials (rootlets). He admits the possibiHty of these 

 objects representing calcareous algae. The specimens studied by Rauff 

 are in the museum of the University of Gottingen. 



I know of no study of this organism later than that of Rauff, but a 

 thorough search into the literature has brought to light a memoir in which 

 it was treated much earlier than any of the papers here noticed, viz in 

 1853. Roemer does not mention it in any of his early works on the paleon- 

 tology of Texas, and seems not to have met with it, but a man named 

 Meusebach, who was probably one of the New Braunfels colonists 

 collected fossils in that region and earty sent specimens to the Mineralogical 

 Museum at Halle. Upon this collection C. G. Giebel published a report," 

 saying that it had long been in the museum. On page 375 he describes 

 Siphonia globularis n. sp., and figures it on plate vii, figs. 3a, 3b. The 

 description and figures give no reason to doubt that they relate to the 

 organism in question. His fig. 3a is a view of one of the poles and shows 

 the radiating tubes, while fig. 3b is a side view ; and although these figures 

 are not clear like those of Rauff, and not magnified, they fairly represent 

 the average condition of these objects. He describes them as "spherical 

 bodies from a few lines to an inch in diameter, with a somewhat depressed 

 apex (Scheitel), the center of which is sunk to the depth of 2-4 lines into a 

 large circular basin. From this radiate irregular, close-pressed furrows, 

 scarcely reaching the margin, and passing into regularly arranged, thickly 

 crowded, round pores, which are separated by spaces about equal to their 

 diameters, though in the largest specimens they are smaller than their inter- 

 spaces." He. had before him 24 specimens, which he says strikingly 



«Beitrag zur Palaontologie des Texanischen Kreidebirges, von C. G. Giebel: Jahresbericht des naturw. 

 Vereines in Halle, Fiinfter Jahrgang, 1852, Berlin, 1853, pp. 358-375, pi. vi, vii. 

 MON xLvni — 0.5 22 



