82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 3, 



December 3, 1845. 



James Ashwell, Esq., B.A., and A. W. Jackson, Esq., were elected 

 Fellows of the Society. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On some remarkable Fossil Ferns from Frostburg, Mary- 

 land, collected by Mr. Lyell. By C. J. F. Bunbury, Esq., 

 F.G.S. 



Plates VI. VII. 



The first of the fossil Ferns (see Plate VI.) which I wish to bring 

 under the notice of the Society has so great a resemblance to the 

 Diplazites emarginatus of Goppert*, that I doubt whether it can 

 with propriety be considered as a distinct species. The specimens 

 are however much more complete than the one he has figured, and in 

 particular exhibit the fructification in a far more distinct and satis- 

 factory manner; and this fructification clearly proves, as I think, that 

 the plant has no close affinity with the recent genus Diplazkim, to 

 which Goppert referred it chiefly on account of its venation. The 

 specimen figured by that distinguished author, and which was the 

 only one he had seen, was procured from the neighbourhood of II- 

 menau, and exhibited only two or three detached pinnae, without any 

 portion of the rachis ; one of those pinnae was partly covered with 

 granulations, exhibiting no distinct structure or arrangement, which 

 he believed to be the fructification in an over-ripe state, having lost 

 (as often happens in ferns) all trace of its original arrangement. 



In the specimens from Frostburg, the rachis or main stalk is flat, 

 from one-eighth to one-fifth of an inch in breadth, faintly striated, 

 and marked with small depressed dots, which doubtless indicate the 

 insertion of hairs. The frond appears to have been simply pinnated. 

 The pinnae are closely set, at right angles or very nearly so to the 

 stalk, to which they are attached by nearly the whole breadth of 

 their base, not in the least dilated or decurrent in that part, ligulate 

 in their general outline, rounded at the end, rather convex, about 

 two and a half inches long, about half an inch broad, and of equal 

 breadth through nearly their whole length ; their margins regularly 

 and neatly crenated, with shallow sinuses. The primary veins, 

 which proceed at first rather obliquely from the midrib of each leaf- 

 let, but soon take a direction nearly perpendicular to it, are pin- 

 nated, with numerous, alternate, very oblique branches or veinlets, 

 most of which reach the margin at an angle not far from a right 

 angle. So far the venation agrees with that of Goppert's Diplazites, 

 and of Brongniart's Pecopteris longifolia ; but in this Frostburg 

 plant, if I am not mistaken, the lowermost pair of veinlets belonging 

 to each primary vein, instead of proceeding to the margin, meet the 

 lowermost branches of the next veins, at a very acute angle, as in 

 the recent genera Anisogonium and Nephrodium of Presl. Unfor- 

 tunately, the veins are but faintly and obscurely marked in the 

 * Systema Fihc. Fossil, p. 274. tab. 16. fig. 1 6{ ?. 



