418 Tr'ivsncfions of the Socieiy. 



plant, which he helieves to he AsteropliylUtes, and remains of Lepi- 

 (Jodendra in some remarkahle heds hi Burntisland, Scotland. He 

 states that the heds appear to have heen patches of peat whicli are 

 now imhedded in masses of volcanic amygdaloid. The general 

 aspect of longitudinal sections of the strohili is that common to 

 Lepidostrohi. They usually have a diameter of from less than half 

 an inch to nearly an inch.* The fruit contains hoth macrospores 

 and microspores, the latter measure ahout ■ 0007 of an inch, and 

 the macrospore figured has a long diameter of 0*027. The 

 tri radiate feature of the microspores described by Professor William- 

 son is common to those in the coal, and is also shown in those 

 figured by Sir Joseph Hooker in the ' ]\Iemoirs of the Geological 

 Survey ' (vol. ii. part 2). The absence, however, of macrospores in 

 Sir Joseph Hooker's cones renders an alliance out of the question. 

 With Professor Williamson's Burntisland strohili, however, both 

 spores are present. The size of the microspores nearly correspond 

 Avith the small variety of microspores which I have discovered in 

 the Scotch " Splint " coal, but the macrospores are far too large 

 to correspond with my small variety ; they more nearly correspond 

 w'ith my larger forms. Professor Williamson does not mention 

 anything about a triradiate ridge or marking on the surface of these 

 macrospores, which is a conspicuous feature in those from the coal. 

 He states that the characteristic peculiarity of the macrospores 

 from the Burntisland beds " is the projection from every part of 

 their external surface of numerous caudate appendages." This 

 is a feature common to the walls of some of the coal macrospores. 

 In the coal, however, the appendages are not well preserved, 

 and frequently only the roots or base remain, giving to the 

 walls of the spore a tuberculated appearance. The appendages 

 are seen in fig. 1, where a few short ones remain around 

 the wall of the macrospore, and in figs. VI and 15 they 

 are broken off. .Professor Williamson thinks that the strohili 

 referred to are the fruit of Biphxylon, though he does not 

 appear to have found them attached to the stem of that plant. I 

 would call special attention to Professor Williamson's remark that 

 the beds in which the remains occur " appear to have been patches 

 of peat." 



I have been told that the coal spores are those of Triplo- 

 sporites. Mr. Carrnthers,t in referring to that genus, points out 

 that the microspores occur in trif)le form, and to show the 

 close alliance with Selaginella he figures the triple microspores 

 of S. spnnuJosa. This is a feature, however, which J have never 

 noticed in the coal spores, and had it been common to them 

 I should certainly have detected it. The absence, then, of that 



* Phil. Trans., 1872, p. 294. 

 t Geol. Mag., vi. (1^60) p. 298. 



