A Tree-fern from the Greensand. A485 
exists in the interior. That the specimen was floated out to sea 
before being buried, there can be little doubt from its abraded con- 
dition ; but this is the more certain from a specimen of the same 
species (perhaps the same individual even) in the possession of the 
Rev. T. Stanton, which has, as Mr. Cunnington informs me, shells 
of Exogyra adhering to it. 
The specimen figured in Plate XIII. is somewhat compressed. 
The characteristic markings are absent along a narrow longitudinal 
portion of one of the flattened surfaces; this probably represents 
the opening in the mould through which the sand entered. The 
sears are small in comparison with most recent ferns. ‘They are 
arranged in a spiral cycle, which completes a single revolution in 
20 inches of the stem, and contains 34 scars in each cycle. The 
sears are of an oval form, and contain two series of markings pro- 
duced by the vascular bundles (Plate XIII, fig. s.). The inner 
one is composed of a continuous plate of vascular tissue, and the 
outer consists of 8 or 9 separate small round bundles distributed 
equally round the lower half of the scar. The inner plate passed 
up through the centre of the stipe, while the separate bundles 
strengthened its under surface. ‘The inner plate presents a some- 
what complex figure; it consists of a constricted centre with a 
roundish lobe below, and two erect lobes separated by a sinus 
which forms a break in the vascular plate. 
This fossil was originally described by Sternberg, and named by 
him Lepidodendron punctatum. Martius, observing its affinity to 
the recent Filices, gave it the name of Filicites punctatus. Brong- 
niart, though noticing the resemblance between its leaf scar and 
those of some recent. ferns, referred it to the genus Sigillaria. 
Goeppert went as far as the materials enabled him, when he de- 
scribed it as Caulopteris punctata. Presl altered the generic name 
into Protopteris, and Corda sets aside the specific denomination by 
which it was known to all preceding authors, and, for no apparent 
reason, names it after its discoverer Protopteris Sternbergi. ‘The 
locality given by Sternberg, ‘in saxo arenaceo formationis Lithan- 
thracum,’ was referred by him to the Coal-measures ; and accepting 
this determination like all who have after him treated of this fossil, 
I had almost added another to this list of synonymes, having given 
the Shaftesbury fern-stem the manuscript name of Caulopteris 
Dicksonioides, which unfortunately, before I had investigated its 
history, I permitted to be inserted on the plate. Dr. Fritsch of 
Prague has since informed me, that the bed from which Caulopteris 
punctata was obtained is Upper Greensand, and that, in 1849, Dor- 
mitzen found in the same stratum two additional species, which 
M. Krejéi figured and described in the Bohemian Journal ‘Ziva’ 
for 1858, viz. Alsophilina Kauniciana, and Oncopteris Nettwalit. 
These were preserved as red sandstone casts, like the specimens 
from Shaftesbury, but they are much more compressed. They 
have a diameter of 6 inches, and he considers they may have 
attained a height of 80 or 40 feet. He thinks that the Cyathee 
of South America and the West Indies are their nearest living re- 
