﻿1851.] BUNBURY — FOSSIL PLANTS OF SCARBOROUGH. 



193 



the whole, until its fructification be better known, it is difficult to 

 refer this spurious Lycopodites to its proper genus. 



There is a great likeness between Palissya ? Williamsoni and my 

 LepidodendronX binerve*, from the coal-formation of Cape Breton : 

 they are alike not only in the aspect of their foliage, but in the form 

 and position of their cones. But the Cape Breton plant is dicho- 

 tomously branched, whereas in that now under consideration the 

 branches are irregularly alternate. I may remark that the leaves of 

 P. Williamsoni are certainly not two-ranked, as they have sometimes 

 been described, but spirally arranged round the branches, although 

 not with great regularity. 



I observed in Prof. Phillips's collection, and in the York Museum, 

 some specimens of what I conceive to be detached scales of a cone. 

 Mr. Phillips indeed has noticed them in his work as "winged seedsf," 

 but they appear to me more like scales, belonging in all probability 

 to the Coniferous order, although certainly not to the present species. 

 They are wedge-shaped, flattish, and thin ; gradually thinning out 

 still more towards the edges, which are quite entire ; and they ap- 

 peared to me to be marked towards their base with the impression 

 of either one or two seeds, — I could not quite ascertain which. 

 They are not likely to have belonged to Cycads, for in all the cone- 

 bearing forms of that order the scales are of a very different form and 

 structure, having a distinct stalk, and a dilated disk-like top, expand- 

 ing nearly at right angles to the stalk. Moreover, the seeds of a 

 Cycadeous plant are inserted on each scale, immediately below or 

 behind its dilated disk ; whereas, in the scales I speak of, the sup- 

 posed impressions of seeds are situated near the base, which agrees 

 with their position hi the Conifers. 



The collections at Scarborough contain several undescribed Cycads, 

 especially of the genus Otozamites (Otopteris, L. and H.) ; but, al- 

 though neither described nor figured, we cannot venture to say that 

 they have not been named, since M. Brongniart has, in his * Pro- 

 drome ' and his ' Tableau des Genres,' enumerated the names only 

 of a considerable number of fossil Cycads, concerning which he has 

 given us no further information. Without the opportunity of seeing 

 authentic specimens, it is impossible to know what are the plants he 

 intended by these names ; so that any one undertaking to describe 

 the apparently new species, would infallibly give new names to things 

 already named in the 'Prodrome.' This has actually happened in the 

 case of Brongniart' s Pterophyllum Williamsonis, which is the very 

 plant now well known as Pt. comptum. Under these circumstances, 

 I avoid, for the present, undertaking the description of these plants. 



In conclusion, I will take this opportunity of correcting an over- 

 sight in my memoir on the fossil plants of the Alpine Anthracite 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iii. p. 431. pi. 24. fig. 2, A, B, C. 

 t Geol. Yorksh. p. 148. pi. 8. f. 2, and p. 154. pi. 10. f. 5. 

 X Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. v. p. 130 et seq. 



