Johnson—/? Archceopteris a Pteridospenn? 115 



others regarded tlie deposit as Lower Oarboniferons, Forbes as Devonian. 

 Brongniart found the specimens sent not sufficiently distinctive to enable 

 him to decide between the two views. No one now objects to the view, 

 based on accumulated evidence, that the deposits are Upper Devonian. The 

 specimens sent (numbered 11, 12, 6, 9, 2), gave Brongniart, he wrote, a 

 better idea of the character of Ct/dopteris hihernica, which he had thought, from 

 a previously sent specimen, might be an Odontopteris. The venation, ho 

 states, is Cyelopteris-like, but the form and arrangement of the pinnules and 

 tlieir flabelliforni venation Sphenopteris-like, and especially suggestive of his 

 Adiantites section' of it, in which the pinnules are entire or only slightly 

 lobed. Brongniart does not know any species really near it, and thinks 

 it ought to be described as a new genus. It needs, he adds, further 

 investigation, is unlike any Carboniferous plant known to him, and in habit 

 approaches Sphenopteris lobata, of the Permian, though the pinnules of this 

 species are deeply divided. In specimens 12 and 9 Brongniart calls 

 attention, as a rarity in ferns, he says, to the now well-known pinnules 

 directly inserted on the raehis. 



In 1859 H. E. Goppert (7) published an account, based on Irish specimens 

 in the Museums of Berlin and Breslau, of Gijclopteris hibernica, Forbes. 

 Goppert claims for his excellent illustration of C. hihernica, that it was more 

 complete than any that had hitherto appeared. He makes the interesting 

 and justifiable criticism that the only figure he has seen (erroneously 

 assigned by him to Forbes), that in Murchison's " Siluria," is much more 

 suggestive of his two species — C. Hallianaol N. America, and C. Roemeriana — 

 than of C. hihernica, judging from the Irish specimens of this species before 

 him. C Halliana, Gopp. was discovered in 1843 in the Upper Devonian 

 beds in the State of New York, and C. Roemeriana, Gopp. in 1855 by Eoemer, 

 in similar beds at Moresnet near Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). It may be 

 mentioned here tliat the figure in Murchison's " Siluria " of Archceopieris 

 hibernica is almost identical with Dawson's figure of his A. Gaspiensis. I 

 can see no difference except in size, the pinna in the A . Gaspiensis illustration 

 being twice the size of that in Murchison's work. 



Goppert's Cyclopteris McCoyana (op. cit., fig. 2a and b, Taf. 38), founded 

 on a fragment, is in reality C. hibernica, with a slight modification of 

 pinnule, and is therefore of no systematic value. 



Goppert notes the presence on the underside of the slab of the Irish 



' Brongniart included all PalEeozoic "ferns" in one comprehensive genus Filicites, with 

 subdivisions such as Cyclopteris, Sphenopteris, indicative of the kind of venation presented by the 

 forms included in them. He expressly stated that the terms were provisional, and must give way as 

 reproductive organs were discovered, 



f>2 



