﻿1851.] BUNBURY FOSSIL PLANTS OF SCARBOROUGH. 189 



7. ASTEROPHYLLITES ? LATERALIS. 



Equisetum laterale, L. & H. Foss. SI. t. 186. 



A very fine and remarkable specimen of this, in Mr. Bean's col- 

 lection, shows, I think conclusively, that the plant could not have 

 been an Equisetum ; for at two or three of its articulations it bears 

 whorls of distinct leaves, — flat, narrow, one-ribbed spreading leaves, 

 exactly like those of an Aster ophyllites. It is hardly necessary to 

 say that no Equisetum has leaves, nor anything to represent them, 

 except the ribbed and toothed sheaths which envelope the stem for a 

 certain distance above each articulation. The stem of an Equisetum 

 bears, indeed, whorls of slender, jointed, furrowed branches ; but I am 

 satisfied that the appendages observed on the stem of the fossil in 

 question are not of this nature ; nor are they prolongations of the teeth 

 of a sheath, but distinct leaves. This being the case, the plant must, I 

 think, be removed altogether from thegenus Equisetum or Equisetites ; 

 but what its real affinities may be, I am at a loss to say. It might 

 perhaps be placed for the present in the genus Aster ophyllites, which 

 is itself a purely provisional and artificial group, of very doubtful 

 affinity, but probably, in part, connected with Catamites. Our plant 

 indeed combines some of the characters of both genera, having the 

 leaves of Aster ophyllites, with the circular radiated disks (the scars, 

 apparently, of disarticulated branches), which occur in several 

 Catamites. 



This seems to be a characteristic fossil of the Lower carbonaceous 

 sandstone of the Scarborough group, which is supposed to be inter- 

 mediate in age between the Great Oolite and Inferior Oolite of the 

 south-western counties. It is perhaps hardly necessary to remark 

 the error into which Dr. Unger has fallen, in enumerating this and 

 most of the Scarborough plants among the fossils of the Lias. 



8. Calamites Beanii, nobis. 



Catamites giganteus, Bean, MSS. 



At the time when I described the fossil plants from Richmond in 

 Virginia*, I was not aware of the existence of true Calamites in the 

 Oolite of Britain ; nor do I, even now, find this fact noticed in any 

 published work. The only Calamites of the Oolitic period which 

 are mentioned either by Brongniart or Unger, are the Calam. Leh- 

 mannianus from Silesia, and C. Hoerensis from Scania ; both of 

 which are marked by M. Brongniart as doubtful species. But in Mr. 

 Bean's collection I saw several specimens of a large and conspicuous 

 Calamite, to all appearance a new species, from the lower division of 

 the carbonaceous sandstones of the Yorkshire coast. As I have 

 elsewhere observed, it is very difficult to find trustworthy specific 

 distinctions in this genus ; but the Scarborough Calamite is very 

 different in appearance from that which is characteristic of the Rich- 

 mond basin, as well as from the true C. arenaceus. It is charac- 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1847, vol. iii. p. 281. 



