r 114 ] 



viir. 



IS ARCHiEOPTERIS A PTERIDOSPERM ? 



ByT. JOHNSON, D.Sc, F. L. S., 

 Professor of Botauj' in tlie Royal College of Scieuce for Ireland. 



PLATES IV.-YI. 



[Read, Makch 28. Ordered for Publication, Afril 11. Published June 28, 1911.] 



In ]852 Edward Forbes (I) communicated to the British Association 

 meeting at Belfast a short note on the discovery in 1851 by officers of the 

 Oeological Survey of Ireland of a deposit of well-preserved fossil plants in 

 the yellow sandstone at Kuocktopher Hill, Co. Kilkenny. Tlie plants were 

 accompanied by sucli fresh-water animals as Aiwdon Jukesii (a mussel), 

 Holoptychius (a fish), and Pterygotus (a crustacean). They were the most 

 perfect illustrations discovered up to that time of the land-flora of the 

 Devonian epoch, and were regarded as the remains of plants growing in 

 swampy ground or in brackish estuarine water. One of the plants was 

 named by Forbes Gyclopteris hiheniica, but was not described in any detail. 

 It was regarded as a fern of the Neuropteris type. It is clear, despite 

 the brevity of his communication, that the value of the find was fully 

 appreciated by Forbes, whose premature death prevented the execution of 

 the design Hugh Miller mentions Forbes had, of preparing a mouograph of 

 this Devonian flora. 



In 1858 W. H. Baily (2) communicated a note to the Britisli Association 

 on these deposits, and described fertile specimens of Ci/clopteris hibcrnica, first 

 found byH. T. Humphreys, of Blackrook, Go. Dublin. In the meantime, in 

 1856, a set of the Kilkenny fossil plants, accompanied by drawings mad e by 

 Dr. Samuel Haughton, had been sent by Sir R. Griffith, the Director of the 

 Geological Survej', to A. Brongniart, whose views were communicated to the 

 Geological Society of Dublin, and to ihe Royal Dublin Society' in 1857. 



M. Brongniart expressed great interest in the collection, and asked for 

 a more complete supply of some of the forms before committing himself to a 

 definite expression of opinion as to their age. Griffith, Haughton, and 



' M. Broagniart's original letter was communicated to the Geological Society of Dublin, and a 

 translation of it to the Koj'al Dublin Society {Journal Hoy. Dublin Soc, Vol. I., 18 57). 



