52 W. Carruthers — Notes on Fossil Plants. 



in sections of calcareous nodnles from the Coal-measures at Oldliam 

 (Fig. 5), prepared by Mr. Norman, have all the characters which I 

 have given as chax'acteristic of those of Hymenoj^hjllea. They are 

 larger than the sporangia of Polypodium viilgare (Fig. 7), and even than 

 those of HymenophjUum Tunbridgense (Fig. 6), but they agree with 

 them in their form, the nature and position of the ring, and the form 

 of the pedicel. I cannot venture to co-relate them as yet with any 

 fern of the Coal-measures, but I trust that a more careful examina- 

 tion of Carboniferous ferns may lead to the detection of fertile speci- 

 mens of this type. 



3. Osmundites DoivTceri, Carruthers. 



A transverse section of the stem of a Eoyal Fern (Osmundites 

 DoioJceri, Carr.), from the Lower Eocene of Heme Bay, is given in 

 Fig. 8. This has been already figured and fully described in the 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1870, p. 349, pi. xxiv. and xxv. The section 

 shows the slender axis surrounded by the bases of the stipes, each 

 with its unbroken lunate vascul-ar bundle. The tissues are so beauti- 

 fully preserved that even the starch grains filling some of the cells 

 are silicified, as well as the ramifying mycelium of a fungus which 

 had attacked the fern (Fig. 9). No foliage has been found in Eocene 

 beds at Heme Bay, but the peculiarities of the stem structure are 

 fully sufficient to establish the affinities of this fossil. 



4. Antholithes, Brongn. Gardiocarpon, Brongn. 



The name Antholithes was proposed by Brongniart (Mem. du Mus. 

 d'Hist. Nat., vol. viii., 1822, p. 319) for two forms of detached 

 flowers from Monte Bolca, which he tlaought were referable, the one 

 probably to Liliaeece, and the other to NymphcBacecB. A very different 

 plant-fragment from Carboniferous rocks waS referred by Lindley to 

 the same group with the Eocene flowers, under the name of A. 

 PitcairnicB (Foss. Flor., 1833, pi. 82). The remarkable caution of this 

 distinguished botanist is in striking contrast to the dogmatic assertions 

 of some students of Paleeontological Botany who have followed him. 

 He says : " This is beyond all doubt the remains of the inflorescence 

 of some plant, but it would puzzle the most ingenious specu- 

 lator to find a single character in the fossil upon which a positive 

 opinion as to its original nature can be formed. . . . All that can be 

 said is that there is a tolerably distinct appearance of a calyx, which 

 seems to have inclosed petals much longer than itself; this taken 

 together with the probability that it owes its preservation to its 

 having been originally of a hard and indestructible texture, has in- 

 duced us to name it as if it had been allied to some of the recent tribe 

 of Bromelias, to which, especially the genus Pitcairnia, it has as much 

 resemblance as to anything else." In 1840 Mr. Prestwich, in his 

 well-known Memoir on Coalbrook Dale (Trans. Geol. Soc, 2nd ser., 

 vol v., pi. xxviii., fig. 6), gave drawings of another fossil allied to 

 A. PitcairnicB, which was described by Professor Morris under the 

 name A. anomalus, and characterized as having the " calyx apparently 

 shorter than the petals (?), furnished with a small lanceolate bract, 

 stigma, or carpella (?) bilocular, elevated upon a long curved fila- 

 ment." These filamentous appendages, he rightly considered as 



