44 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1280 



stress will unquestionably exercise a stimu- 

 lating and directive influence upon future 

 investigations. 



Througli the death of Mr. Clement Eeid 

 (December, 1917) paleobotany has lost one of 

 the ablest and most careful observers in a 

 neglected field of British botany, namely, the 

 investigation of the composition of European 

 floras subsequent to the advent of the flower- 

 ing plants as the dominant class. In his later 

 work he had the benefit of the assistance of 

 his wife by whom, it may confidently be ex- 

 pected, questions connected with the origin of 

 the British flora will be further elucidated. 

 Dr. Newell Axher, who died in June, 1918, 

 was one of the most indefatigible and en- 

 thusiastic students of ancient floras, particu- 

 larly those of Paleozoic and later Mesozoic 

 age. He accomplished much in a compara- 

 tively short life and by his whole-hearted de- 

 votion to research exercised a wide influence 

 upon younger men. Miss Euth Holden, 

 though an American citizen, left her paleo- 

 botanical work in this country at the end of 

 1916 to join a British medical unit in Kussia 

 where she died in April, 1917. By her death 

 paleobotany lost an exceptionally gifted and 

 promising student. 



Books. — The second part of " The Creta- 

 ceous Flora "^ by Dr. Marie Stopes, a volume 

 of a series of British Museum Catalogues of 

 the fossil plants in the national collection is 

 devoted to an account of Lower Greensand 

 (Aptian) plants, principally Conifers and ex- 

 tinct types of Cycadophyta. The introductory 

 chapter includes an interesting sketch of the 

 general facies of Lower Greensand floras and 

 a discussion on the climatic conditions under 

 which the plants lived. A remarkable new 

 genus {Golymbea) of Cycadophyta is described 

 and new types of dicotyledonous wood. The 

 author's work affords striking evidence of the 

 highly specialized structure of some of the 

 ■oldest dicotyledonous trees of which we have 

 any detailed knowledge. Volume III. of 



1 ' ' Catalogue of the Mesozoie Plants in the Brit- 

 ish Museum" (Nat. Hist.), The Cretaceous Flora, 

 Pt. II., London, 1915. 



2 "Fossil Plants," Vol. III., Cambridge, 1917. 



" Fossil Plants,^ a text-book for students of 

 Botany and Geology " by the writer of this 

 article published in 1917 continues the ac- 

 count of Pteridosperms and Cycadofilices be- 

 gun in Vol. II. and deals with recent and 

 fossil Cycadophyta, the Cordiatales, and fossil 

 gymnospermous seeds. The concluding vol- 

 ume has been printed and will be published 

 as soon as circumstances permit. 



Papers. — 1. Pre-Carhoniferous Plants. One 

 of the most important paleobotanical contri- 

 butions of recent years, a paper of exceptional 

 interest, is the memoir by Dr. Kidston and 

 Professor Lang^ on a new genus of plants, 

 Bhynia Gwynne-Vaughani, beautifully pre- 

 served as an almost pure growth in beds of 

 chert in the Old Red Sandstone of Aberdeen- 

 shire. The chert consists of a series of peat 

 beds which were periodically inundated and 

 eventually covered by a layer of sand. The 

 silicified peat is almost entirely composed of 

 the prostrate stems and rhizomes of the leaf- 

 less and rootless Bhynia. This oldest land 

 plant of which the internal structure is at 

 all fully known consisted of a branched under- 

 ground rhizome attached to the soil by rhizoids 

 bearing occasionally forked, slender, leafless 

 aerial branches. The vegetative organs bore 

 small hemispherical protuberances some of 

 which developed into adventitious branches. 

 The reproductive organs are represented by 

 elongate isosporous synangia probably borne 

 at the end of the main axes. A new group, 

 the Psilophytales, is instituted for this ex- 

 ceptionally interesting plant which is com- 

 pared with Psilotum and with the Devonian 

 PsUophyton princeps. Dr. Arber and Mr. 

 Goode* record the occurrence of a few frag- 

 mentary impressions of land plants from 

 Devonian rocks of North Devon including 

 specimens of slender repeatedly forked axes 

 with terminal cupule-like organs which they 

 refer to a new genus Xenotheca believed to 

 represent the fertile shoots of a Pteridosperm. 



3 Trans. B. Soc. Edinburgh, Vol. LI., Pt. III., p. 

 761, 1917. See also British Assoc. Report, 1916, 

 p. 206. 



iProc. Cambridge FhiJ. Soc, Vol. XVIII., Pt. 

 III., p. 89, 1915. 



