lesqueheux.] FOSSIL PLANTS FEOM POINT OF ROCKS. 297 



it by broader, less distinct, square areolae, the absence of a dividing 

 middle nerve, and the narrowing of the base to a very short pedicel. 

 By these two last characters, this species is unlike any of this genus. 

 It is, however, probable that the two leaves representing it were not, 

 when embedded into the clay, in their full state of maturity, one of 

 them being smaller than the other, and its areolation far less distinct. 

 In the young leaves of the living Salvinia nutans, the leaves, before 

 attaining their lull development, have the middle nerve scarcely dis- 

 cernible. 

 Habitat. — Point of Eocks, William Cleburn. 



3. SELAGINELLA % FALCATA, sp. nOV. 



Frond small, dichotomous ; pinnse narrow-linear, one to four centime- 

 ters long, six to seven millimeters broad ; piunules close, two-ranked, 

 in right angle to the rachis, generally covering each other at the bor- 

 ders, falcate upwards, lanceolate-acuminate, suddenly narrowed to the 

 point of attachment, without distinct middle nerve. 



I have figured four different parts of this plant, which is abundantly 

 scattered among the floating rootlets and upon the specimens of the 

 Lemna ? Scutata. It may represent some kind of floating fern, per- 

 haps, rather than a species of Selaginella. It is, however, closely 

 allied to Selaginella Berthoudi, Lsqx., described in Dr. Hayden's Annual 

 Eeport for 1873 (p. 395), differing, however, by the two-ranked position 

 of the leaves and their distinctly falcate form. 



Habitat.— Point of Eocks, Dr. F. V. Rayden, W. Cleburn. 



One of Mr. Cleburn's specimens represents a fragment of a stem ten 

 centimeters long, one centimeter broad, round, but flattened by com- 

 pression, covered with densely imbricate leaves of the same form and 

 size as those of the branches. This stem proves the relation of the 

 described fragments to the lycopodiaceous family. 



4. Selaginella laciniata, sp. nov. ? 



Branches dichotomously divided 5 divisions two to three centimeters 

 long ; leaflets ? opposite, distichous, divided from the base in three to 

 five filiform lacinia*}, some of them forking at the middle, all curving 

 upward, or falcate. 



By its mode of vegetation, the form and divisions of the pinnse or 

 branchlets, these small plants are exactly similar to those described 

 from Dr. Hayden's specimens under the name of Selaginella faleata. 

 The difference is in the remarkable laceration or thread-like divisions 

 of the leaflets. The lacinise distinct and in relievo upon the stone are 

 like the veinlets of fern -leaves, when, by maceration and decomposi- 

 tion, their epidermis has been destroyed, or like skeletons of leaves. In 

 this case, however, as these thread-like branches are more or less nu- 

 merous, either simple or forking from the middle, and thus differing in 

 number and mode of divisions for each leaflet, this appearance cannot 

 result from decomposition in water. It is probable that these remains 

 represent a kind of lycopodiaceous plant, living sometimes partly im- 

 mersed, and that, as it happens in numerous species of water-plants of 

 this epoch, the immersed leaves become decomposed, and grow into la- 

 ciniate divisions, while the emerged ones are entire or undivided. This 

 difference in the leaves is particularly marked in Nasturtium lacustre, 

 Gray, known to every botanist. I do not know, however, any Lyco- 

 podium species showing this kind of variations in leaves. Even L. in- 

 undatum has the leaves of the immersed part entire or without divis- 



