1872.] CAEETTHERS CIXJEENSLAND FOSSILS. 353 



rhombic scars stop. Below this line I have not been able to detect 

 the trace of leaves in the matrix ; but above in the growing apices of 

 the branches the leaves are abundant (fig. 1). The leaves are very 

 small and peltate, with roundish petioles as long as the leaf 

 itself. The petiole was placed at right angles to the stem, and was 

 attached to the lamina of the leaf about one third up from its lower 

 edge. The larger upper portion of the leaf overlapped the lower 

 portion of that above it, so that externally the branch was com- 

 pletely hidden by the covering of peltate, imbricate, and pedicellate 

 leaves. In the slender and dichotomously divided branch (fig. 7), 

 the leaves seem to have been ordinary leaves ; but in the thicker 

 and simple branch represented at fig. 1, a slight protuberance, 

 which can be detected on the middle of several of the petioles, indi- 

 cates, as it seems to me, that these were fruit-bearing. The re- 

 semblance these leaves bear to the fruit-bearing leaves of modern 

 Lycopods is apparent from a comparison of fig. 5, representing 

 Liicopodimn Gayanum, Brongn., with the fossil, fig. 6. 



The identity of this plant with Dr. Dawson's Leptopliloeum rliom- 

 bicum cannot be doubted ; and the propriety of giving up the long, 

 parallel-sided, and one-nerved leaves, and the strobiles borne on the 

 sides of the branches, as I suppose he has done*, is thus fully 

 justified. 



Several specimens of the A'norria-condition of preservation of this 

 plant are to be found in Mr. Daintree's collections. Inasmuch as 

 the internal constitution of the stems of many of the more frequent 

 Lycopodiaceous stems of paleeozoic rocks was similar, it is impossible 

 to discover in the accidental appearance of their internal and amor- 

 phous casts any characters which would justify our establishing them 

 as species, or would enable us to refer them to a known species, in 

 the interior of which they may have been formed. It is onlj^ in eases 

 like the present, where but one species is found with the Knorria- 

 casts to which they can belong, that certainty can be attained. 



I may close this account by a more exact specific diagnosis supplied 

 by- the materials which I have now described. 



Lepidodestdeon nothtjm, linger (non Salter), Denkschr. Akad. 



Wissen. Wien, math.-natur. CI. vol. xi. (1856) p. 175, pi. x. 



f. 4-8. 

 Scars of the leaves contiguous, rhombic, with a single and gene- 

 rally central vascular scar ; leaves small, peltate and imbricate, on 

 long slender petioles ; fruit produced on the apices of the thick 

 branches, a single sporangium, almost sessile, borne on the middle of 

 the petiole of the leaf ; roots stigmarioid. 



The geographical distribution of this plant is remarkable. Dr. 

 Dawson's figure leaves no doubt as to the identity of the Canadian 

 and Australian plants, as far as the small fragments found in Canada 

 enable one to come to a positive decision ; and the same may be 

 said of TJnger's specimen from Germany. But this only confirms 



* Compare Dawson in Quart. Journ. Geol Soc. (1863) vol. xix. p. 462, with 

 his ' Pre- Carboniferous Floras ' (1871). 



