THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE 111. VOL. III. 



No. VIII.— AUGUST, 1886. 



ozRia-insr^Xj abticles. 



I. — Note on Eophyton ? explanatum, Hicks, and on Hyalostelia 

 (Pyritonema) fasciculus, M'Coy, sp. 



By George Jennings Hinde, Ph.D., F.G.S. 



ME. W. CAEEUTHEES, F.R.S., lately called my attention to 

 the resemblance between some drawings I was showing to him 

 of Hyalostelia fasciculus, M'Coy, sp., and the supposed fossil plant, 

 described and illustrated by Dr. Henry Hicks, F.E.S., in the 

 Geological Magazine for 1869, Vol. VI. p. 534, PI. XX. Figs, la-e, 

 under the name of Eophyton ? explanatum. 



The following is the description given by Dr. Hicks of this fossil : 

 " A raised moderately convex stem about four lines in breadth ; 

 widening however and becoming somewhat compressed at the joints. 

 The surface is ribbed and furrowed along its whole length. At the 

 lower joints, the ribs bend outwards, evidently to form a branch. 

 The joint is obliquely placed, widened out, and its course distinctly 

 marked by a deep sulcus. The cortical substance is very thin, and 

 can be removed to show the internal structure. The internal struc- 

 ture is made up of compressed columns, running the whole length 

 from joint to joint, evidently of a tubular nature, and bound together 

 by very thin tissue." 



Owing to the fact that no structure had been discovered in the 

 type forms of the genus Eophyton, Dr. Hicks placed this fossil only 

 provisionally under the genus, but he at the same time stated that 

 there could be no reasonable doubt of its vegetable nature, and that 

 its affinity to the vascular cryptogams was most clearly shown. 



Its plant-characters, however, were not acknowledged by Mr. 

 Carruthers, who wrote respecting it: "It is very doubtful whether 

 this fossil belongs to the Vegetable Kingdom. The lai'ge-sized 

 continuous tubes of which it is composed are unlike plant-structure " 

 (Seemann's Journal of Botany, vol. viii. p. 13). 



Subsequently, in the Quarterly Journal Geol. Soc. for 1881, vol. 37, 

 p. 490, Dr. Hicks again refers to the same fossil in the following 

 paragraph : " Of Eophyton ? explanatum, which I found in the Tremadoc 

 rocks of St. David's, I fear the evidence is scarcely sufficient to ally 

 it with land-plants. Its strong tubular structure renders it unlike 

 any known land-plant; and the only other fossil found yet, to which 

 it can be compared, is the Pyritonema of Prof. M'Coy, placed by him 



DECA1JE III. VOL. III. NO. VIII. 22 



