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PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



[Mar. 20, 



cately preserved. There are other specimens also from Bokhara, 

 Kampti, SilewacM, and Barkoi. It is difficult to form a clear idea 

 of the general form and habit of the plant ; but the specimens 

 give satisfactory information as to the leaves and sheaths, their rela- 

 tive position and connexion. Some of them show conclusively the 

 accuracy of Brongniart's original statement, that the leaves are pro- 

 longations of the teeth of the sheaths. Lindley (followed by linger 

 in his ' Synopsis ') conjectured that Brongniart had been deceived, and 

 that the leaves really surrounded the sheath, springing from below 

 it ; but the correctness of the original description has been confirmed 

 by the observations of Morris* and McCoy, f on specimens from 

 New South Wales ; as well as by the later ones of Baron AchiBe de 

 Zigno on two new species of the genus discovered by him in the 

 Jurassic rocks of the Veronese territory J. The specimens before me 

 are, I believe, the first that have been described from India §. They 

 were very correctly referred by Messrs. Hislop and Hunter to the 

 genus Phyllotheca ; and it is not yet clear to me whether they are 

 even specifically distinguishable from those of New South Wales. 



Some of these fragments show most unequivocally the continuity 

 of the narrow leaves with the sheaths ; that, in fact, the leaves are 

 simply the elongated teeth of the sheaths ; or, to express it in a dif- 

 ferent way, that the sheaths are formed of the united bases of the 

 leaves. The sheaths in this BharatwaWa plant are not closely 

 pressed to the stem, as described in the original Phyllotheca mistralis 

 of Brongniart, and in McCoy's P. ramosa ; they widen more or less 

 rapidly upwards, and more rapidly in the upper part, so as to be 

 somewhat funnel-shaped or bell-shaped ; on the upper parts of the 

 small branches they appear to cover the whole, or nearly the whole, 

 length of the internodes. These sheaths are strongly and regularly 

 furrowed ; the furrows appear to correspond in number to the leaves, 

 and to be prolonged into their midribs. Leaves numerous in each 

 whorl, but I have not yet found any specimen sufficiently perfect to 

 show their exact number ; they are linear, veiy narrow, longer than 

 the sheaths, with a distinct midrib ; in direction sometimes erect, 

 more often spreading at various angles, and very often recurved. 

 The sheaths seem to be deciduous ; at least I can find no trace of 

 them on what appear to be stems and older branches of the same 

 plant, which are regularly and distinctly furrowed and jointed, like 

 a Gdlamites. The furrows do not, however, alternate at the joints, 

 as in all the Calamttes except 0. transitionis Gopp. ; the ridges and 

 furrows of each internode are in the same line with those of the next . 

 McCoy describes the branches of bis P. ramosa as originating 

 " directly over the joints," and being therefore " within and axillary 

 to the sheaths." The same is evidently the case with P. Bronc/ni- 

 artiana of De Zigno. Some of the Xagpur specimens show branches, 



* Strzeleeki's New South Wales, p. 251. 

 t Annals of Nat History, v. p. 20 (1847). 

 \ Flora Fossilis Formations Oolitkicae, pp. 59, GO, tabb. 7, 8. 

 § No species of TlnjUothca is noticed by McClelland in his enumeration of 

 Indian fossil plants (Keport of Geol. Surrey of India. Calcutta, 1850). 



