﻿1851.] BUNBURY — FOSSIL PLANTS OF SCARBOROUGH. 



185 



primordial or seedling fronds of recent Ferns ; and these are frequently 

 more different from the mature state of the species to which they 

 belong, than is one of our fossil plants from the other. With respect 

 to the absence of midrib, which might be considered a distinctive 

 character of the S. cuneata, I have seen specimens of the ordinary 

 form of S. Phillipsii in which this rib was but slightly marked ; and 

 it is often faint or indistinct in the seedling leaves of Ferns, while 

 strongly developed in the mature state of the same. 



It remains to be inquired, whether the Glossopteris Phillipsii of 

 the * Fossil Flora' be really identical with the plant so called by 

 Brongniart. I must observe in the first place, that the plate in the 

 above-mentioned work does not accurately represent the venation, — 

 at least as it appears in the numerous specimens I have examined. 

 The veins go off at first from the midrib at an extremely acute angle, 

 curving very gradually towards the margin, much as in Neuropteris ; 

 and the areolae or meshes, formed by the anastomosing of their 

 branches, are much longer and narrower, and at the same time less 

 uniform in shape and size, than they are represented in the plate I 

 allude to. M. Brongniart figures his Glossopteris Phillipsii with 

 free, not reticulated veins ; in his description he does not allude to 

 this part of the character ; but Prof. Goeppert, in describing Lindley 

 and Hutton's plant, notices this glaring discrepancy between the 

 figures given under the same name in the two works, and conjectures 

 the plant intended by Brongniart to be essentially different from that 

 of Lindley and Hutton. Brongniart himself, in his latest review of 

 fossil botany*, comes to the same conclusion, and frames a new 

 genus, Phyllopteris, for his original Glossopteris Phillipsii, stating 

 that it agrees in its general form with the Sagenopteris of the same 

 localities, but differs materially in its venation, which is not at all 

 reticulated. He is of opinion also that the plant figured by Prof. 

 Phillips in the ' Geology of Yorkshire,' is his Phyllopteris, and not 

 the Sagenopteris. The accuracy of the great French botanist is 

 above all suspicion ; but I may observe, that his Phyllopteris must 

 certainly be very rare ; for in none of the collections that I examined 

 at Scarborough and York, not even in Prof. Phillips's, could I find 

 a single specimen answering to his description of this new genus. 

 Mr. Phillips's original drawings, which he had the kindness to show 

 me, and which are but imperfectly represented in the published work, 

 show clearly that his plant was the Sagenopteris ; and this is what 

 we always find under the name of Glossopteris Phillipsii in the local 

 collections. Its leaflets vary in breadth, and Mr. Phillips observes 

 that the veins are more conspicuously reticulated in proportion as the 

 leaflet is broader ; a circumstance not without example in recent 

 Ferns. 



Goeppert formerly considered the narrower (and more common) 

 form of this plant as the fertile frond, and the broader as the barren 

 state of the same ; but I believe no one has been able to detect the 

 least trace of anything like fructification. Mr. Bean, on the other 



* Tableau des Genres, p. 22. 



VOL. VII. PART I. 



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