212 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



previously, as a possible sign of Calamarian affinity. The impression 

 abundantly justifies the view that Bothrodendron passed at its base into a 

 typical Stigmarian stump with appendages. I must refer readers interested 

 in the question to the discussion on Stigmaria in my previous paper, 

 but more particularly to the account of Stigmaria in Scott's " Studies in 

 Fossil Botany " (2nd ed., 1908, vol. i, pp. 237-262). 



D. White (2) describes a fossil tree-trunk from the Middle Devonian of 

 Naples, New Tork,i which shows in its lower part Sigillaria characters, and 

 in its upper regions Lepidodendron features. Bothrodendron traces are also 

 observable. Though the expanded, truncate butt-end of the trunk does not 

 show the Stigmarian " root," it does bear typical Stigmarian rootlets, or 

 appendages, and shows on its much-wrinkled surface the regular Stigmarian 

 scars. Archmosigillaria primceva (Eogers, sp.) is thus a remarkable primitive 

 Lepidophyte, nearer the ancestral type than any of the three genera 

 mentioned above, though Protolepiclodendron scharianum 'Krejci (3) from the 

 Devonian (?) of Bohemia is, Wliite thinks, still more primitive. 



About the middle of the last century Stigmaria ficoides, described as the 

 commonest fossil of the English Coal-measures, was proved to be the under- 

 ground " root " of Sigillaria and of Lepidodendron. The illustration here given 

 shows that it must now be also accepted as the underground organ (root- 

 stock) of Bothrodendron. There is no marked feature of distinction — 

 morphological or structural — of the Stigmaria stage of one genus from that 

 of either of the others ; a sign in itself of the close affinity of the three. 



Eecent quarrying has also yielded interesting material of the cone of 

 Bothrodendron. The illustration in PI. XVI, fig. 2, shows that the cone 

 was not a deciduous sessile one leaving a Ulodeudroid soar, as restorations 

 in other species of the genus have shown it, but that it was borne on a 

 well-developed stalk which shows the ordinary leaf-scars continued to the 

 very base of the cone. Its axis is short and thick, and bears numerous 

 closely arranged sporophylls. These consist of a broadened fertile proximal 

 portion lying horizontally at right angles to the axis of the cone, and an 

 upturned filamentous or awl-shaped distal portion similar to the ordinary 

 vegetative leaf (Of. op. cit., fig. 1, pi. xxxvi). The dichotomous branching, 

 giving the two stalked cones, is strictly comparable with the forking of the 

 vegetative shoot. One specimen (PL XVI, fig. 1) in fact shows a forked 

 shoot, one limb of which is vegetative, while the other ends in a cone. 

 The cone is heterosporous like that of Lepidostrobus. The lower 



' D. White : " A remarkable Fossil Tree-trunk from the Middle Devonic of New York." New 

 York State Museum, Bulletin 107, Geological Papers, Albany, 1907. 



