504 



Scientific Proceedings^ Royal Dullin Society. 



the reproduction of Unger's figure shows, the specimen is a small piece of a 

 stem, with slightly projecting distant leaf-sears alternating with one another, 

 and forming spirally ascending ' whorls ' or parastichies. I was much 

 struck by the similarity of the figure to the appearance presented by a young 

 stem of Bothrodendron hiltorhense, as I had seen it in Irish specimens, and 

 also in a specimen from Bear Island I owe to the kindness of Professor 

 Nathorst. This similarity is strikingly indicated in Nathorst's own figure 

 (pi. si, fig. 10) of such a stem, text-figure 2. The likeness is not lessened by 

 comparison of the enlarged leaf-scars. To me it seemed that Li/copodites 

 pinastroides, E. and U., was in reality a twig of Bothrodendron, and that 

 Brongniart was justified when he suggested the Saalfeld beds' might throw 



Fig. 2. — Piece of stem of Bothrodendron kiUorkense from Bear Island, for comparison 

 with text-figure 1. (After JS'athorst.) 



light on the Kiltorcau ones. The Saalfeld material has been recently re- 

 investigated by Count Solms-Laubach (11) under difficulties which he 

 graphically describes. Solms-Laubach leaves L. jnnastroides, except for an 

 added query, as he finds it, saying that though he had tlie advantage of 

 examining the type-specimen preserved in Berlin, he could not express any 

 definite opinion on its characters or affinities. I cannot but think that an 

 examination of a series of specimens of Bothrodendron would satisfy him of 

 the identity of the two. I feel convinced that L. jnnastroides is a fragment 

 of Bothrodendron ; and I am encouraged in this view by the fact that 

 B. mimdifoUum was once described and figured as Lycopodites selaginoides 



' Zimraermann (Potonie : Die Silur-Flora, p. 168) places the Saalfeld deposits in the Lower 

 Culm formation. 



