532 SIR J. W. DAWSON — FOSSILS FROM NEWFOUNDLAND. 



The gymnospermous remains in the collection are thus of three types only, 

 viz: 



1. Dadoxylon materiarium, the most common coniferous wood in tlie coal 

 formation of Nova Scotia ; 



2. Cordaioxyloii, sp., the wood probably of the species of Cordaites found 

 in the same formation ; 



3. Cordaites horassifolia, leaves of which species occur in the shales, asso- 

 ciated with the woods. 



LEPIDODENDRE.E. 



The genus Lepidodendron and its allied genus Lepidophloios are at present 

 much involved in that confusion which must necessarily result from the de- 

 scription of mere fragments of large trees. The trunk of a Lepidodendron 

 retaining its rotundity, or more or less flattened, showing the outer surface 

 or the inner surface of the epidermal layer, or the surface of the woody zone, 

 or the mere surface of the axis, will under all these different conditions pre- 

 sent very different appearances, while leafless or leafy branches or branchlets 

 in like manner are extremely different from one another. Hence the de- 

 scription of fragments of stems without leaves or fruit has encumbered the 

 subject with a load of uncertain synonymy. 



My Newfoundland collections contain at least one species which shows the 

 character of the old stem, the branches and the leaves, and which besides 

 belongs to a type of great interest in its relation to other lepidodendra. It 

 may be described as follows : 



LEPIDODENDRON MURRAYANUM,* SP. NOV. 



(Figures 1, 2 and 3, plate 20.) 



The old stem (figures 2 and 3); surface immediately below the thin epi- 

 dermis has pronounced elongate elliptical leaf-bases, 3 cm. long and 8 mm. 

 broad, running into each other vertically by a narrow isthmus, so as to 

 give from some points of view the appearance of interrupted ribs. The leaf- 

 bases and borders are striate longitudinally, and have on the lower part some 

 transverse wrinkles. The leaf-scar is sub-central but nearer the top of the 

 leaf-base, ovate tending to rhombic, in the natural state inclined strongly 

 inward or prominent at the lower edge. Vascular scars crowded in the cen- 

 ter of the leaf-scar; the two outer meet below in a hippocrepian form with 

 the central scar in the middle. This stem has probably been six inches or 

 more in diameter, and has an impression of the axis in the interior. The 

 axis is longitudinally striate and only f of an inch in diameter. 



* In MS. notes sent to the late Mr. Blarray the nanne Sigillarioides was proposed, but this I have 

 found to be preoccupied. 



