= 
102. Dr Arber and Mr Goode, On some fossil 
Obscure Axes. 
In addition to the dichotomously branched axes of Xenotheca, 
several specimens of naked axes, laterally branched, have been 
obtained at Baggy Point. There is also at least one example of 
a cymosely branched type, somewhat recalling Hostimella from the » 
Devonian of Bohemia, but this is too fragmentary to allow of any 
real comparison with that genus. The affinities of these axes 
remain wholly obscure. t 
Conclusions. 
With the exception of the obscure plant remain described 
from the Lynton beds, all the other determinations here recorded 
relate to terrestrial plants from the Baggy or Cucullcea beds of 
the Upper Devonian of North Devon. These are: 
Sphenopteridium rigidum (Ludw). 
Sphenopteris sp. 
Xenotheca devonica gen. et spec. nov, 
Telangium sp. 
Knorria sp. 
Cordaites ? sp. 
We can find no evidence of the occurrence of Archcwopteris 
hibernica (Forbes) in Devonshire; and so far as we are aware the 
only valid determinations among previous records are included in 
the above list. 
Though the number of records is small, these-specimens are of 
particular interest as being the oldest (in a geological sense) 
terrestrial plants known from England. The occurrence of a 
cupulate organ, Xenotheca, which is probably the first to be 
demonstrated in rocks of Devonian age, is of importance as tending 
to confirm the conclusion that the Pteridosperms were an important 
group even at this early period. 
On the vexed question as to whether the higher part of the 
so-called Devonian sequence in North Devon, to which these 
specimens belong, should not be referred to the Lower Carboni-. 
ferous, the known flora of the beds in question sheds hardly any 
light. There are in the first place good grounds for the belief that 
the Lower Carboniferous flora is very closely related, and in many 
respects similar to that of the Upper Devonian, and supposing 
that the Baggy beds really are of Devonian age, as they may well 
be, the specimens described here tend to confirm this conclusion. 
We should at any rate not expect to find in Devonshire, in the 
higher beds of the Devonian, a tora markedly dissimilar from that 
