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PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



[Mar. 12, 



barren state of this plant. The aspect of the two is certainly very- 

 different, yet not more so than that of the barren and fertile states of 

 various recent Ferns. I have not, myself, seen any specimens tend- 

 ing to prove the identity of the two. Brongniart, indeed, has repre- 

 sented in P. Murray ana an appearance strikingly similar to the in- 

 dusium of an Aspidium or Polystichum ; but, what is singular, he 

 has totally omitted all mention of this in his description ; and it is 

 possible that the appearance may have been either purely accidental 

 or produced by a parasitical Fungus. 



The distinction of Tympanophora, as a genus, from Sphenopteris, 

 or from Goeppert's Trichomanites, must rest mainly on the diversity 

 of the barren and fertile leaflets, if this be really the case. Other- 

 wise, I do not see how it is to be kept generically separate from the 

 group just mentioned. The Trichomanites Beinerti, Goepp.*, so 

 strongly resembles it, both in the extreme slenderness of the ultimate 

 divisions of its frond, and in the form of its fruit-bearing cups, that 

 one feels unwilling to place them in separate genera. 



2. Baiera ? gracilis, nov. sp. Pl. XII. fig. 3. 



Schizopteris gracilis, Bean, MSS. 



This plant is slightly noticed by M. Adolphe Brongniart in his 

 'Tableau des Genres' (p. 38), where, after speaking of the Cyclo- 

 pteris digitata of the ' Fossil Flora,' which he refers (though with 

 some doubt) to the genus Baiera, he mentions "une espece des 

 memes localites a lobes lineaires." This is all the published account 

 that I can find of it ; yet it does not appear to be very uncommon in 

 the " Lower Sandstones " of the Scarborough series, for I saw several 

 specimens of it in the collections of Dr. Murray, Mr. Bean, and Prof. 

 Phillips, and procured one from a dealer at Scarborough. It is, with- 

 out doubt, closely allied to the plant above mentioned, the Cyclo- 

 pteris Huttoni of Sternberg and of Morris (C. digitata, Foss. Fl. t. 64) : 

 the general form of the frond, its dichotomous mode of division, and 

 apparently its texture, are alike in both ; but in the plant now before 

 us the lobes are much longer and narrower than in the other, nearly 

 linear, very slightly widening upwards, and acute at their tips. The 

 stalk is long and narrow, striated and slightly channeled along its 

 upper surface, expanding very gradually into the leaf, which is con- 

 stantly and very deeply divided into two parts, each of these being again 

 repeatedly bifid, with great regularity. The ultimate lobes are long, 

 strictly linear, ending rather suddenly in a point. General outline of 

 the leaf fan-shaped. Veins rather obscure, but they seem to be few, 

 nearly simple, and parallel, very sparingly forked, not confluent ; no 

 trace of a midrib. 



Mr. Bean gave this plant the MS. name of Schizopteris gracilis ; 

 but although it might be difficult to frame a generic definition which 

 should separate it from the original Schizopteris anomala, the type 

 of that genus, yet it appears to me clear that it has no near affinity 

 with that truly anomalous plant. The mode of division of the frond, 



* Syst. Fil. Foss. p. 265. t. 32. f. h 



