THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE, 



NEW SERIES. DECADE V. VOL. IX. 



No. III.— MARCH, 1912. 



OI?,I<3-Ilsr.A.JL. .A-I^TIOLEIS. 

 I. — A JSTOTE OK SOME FoSSIL PjAKTS FROM THE KkNT CoAL-FIELD. 



By E. A. Newell Arber, M.A., P.G.S., F.L.S., Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 University Demonstrator in Palseobotany. 



(PLATE V.) 



ri1HE rapid exploration of the Kent Coal-field during the last few 

 JL years has considerably increased our knowledge of the very 

 interesting Upper Carboniferous floras there developed. In a previous 

 paper * I described the plants obtained from the Waldershare and 

 Eredville borings, and I hope before long to publish further accounts 

 of the floras derived from several other boi'ings. In the present note 

 I wish to draw attention to the discovery of two fossils in Kent 

 which appear to me to be of exceptional interest." 



DicirocALAMiTES BuREi, gen. et spec. nov. (PI. Y, Figs. 1, 3, and 5.) 



Two examples which appear to be members of a new genus, allied 

 to Calamites, have been obtained from cores of 4 inches in diameter at 

 the boring at Barfreston, at a depth of 2,559 feet, on the property of 

 the Sondage Syndicate, Limited. Impressions of true Calamites are 

 also associated. The larger fragment of the new plant is shown on 

 PI. Y, Fig. 1, enlarged to nearly twice natural size. Part of an 

 internode is seen with a node above, the internode being 4 cm. long 

 and 5 cm. broad, though it is not complete. The most striking 

 feature of the fossil is the reticulate series of ridges of the internode, 

 which, so far as I am aware, are quite unlike anything hitherto 

 described. These anastomosing ridges are more clearly seen on PI. Y, 

 Figs. 3 and 5, which are enlarged views of other fragments of inter- 

 nodes on the same piece of core. The ridges anastomose at infrequent 

 intervals, forming elongately fusiform reticulations. The intern odes 

 exhibit a number of large, more or less irregularly oval, pits or 

 depressions (Figs. 3 and 5) which obviously deflect the course of the 

 ridges in their neighbourhood, I am inclined to regard these as 

 the points of attachment of adventitious roots. One such root is seen 

 apparently in continuity with the stem. This is not, however, shown 

 in the photograph. Two of the root insertions are, however, plainly 

 seen in Fig. 3 and one in Fig. 5. 



^ Arber, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. Ixv, p. 21, 1909. 

 '■^ [For review of Geological Survey memoir on the Kent Coal Exploration, 

 just issued, see infra, p. 131. — Edit.] 



DECADE V. — VOL. IX. — NO. III. 7 



