FROM THE HUTTON COLLECTION. 123 



23Q.— Stigmaria jicoides, L. et H. Type SPECIMEN, F. F. pi. 34. 



There is a label by Hutton on this specimen, " Stigmaria 

 Jicoides, Jarrow, B. P. 34." Cast of portion of the com- 

 pressed root covered with raised tubercles. The tubercles are 

 arranged in quincunx obliquely across the root, with indica- 

 tions of vessels between them. 



Loc. — Shale above the Bensham Seam, Jarrow. (H. C. 504). 



Remarks. — Much has been written about this fossil root, Stig- 

 maria Jicoides, and yet a modern writer confesses that "at present 

 (these roots) cannot be correlated with the various stems to 

 which they belong." This confession is very true, for though 

 the earlier and more recent writers on this subject have ascer- 

 tained much respecting some parts of its internal structure, 

 enough, at least, to correlate it as the root of Lepidodendron, but 

 no distinguishing marks have been found by which these roots 

 can be referred to the species of Lepidodendron to which they 

 belong. By some writers it has been insisted that they are the 

 roots of Sigillaria exclusively, and by others that they are 

 generically distinct and independent plants. Stigmarice have 

 been found in beds and parts of the Carboniferous series in which 

 no traces of Sigillaria have been found, and where, in all proba- 

 bility, they never existed. Also the pith of Sigillaria seems to 

 be of an entirely different character to that found in Stigmaria, 

 so that it is very probable that the stems found connected with 

 Stigmarian roots, and which have been taken for Sigillaria, may 

 have belonged to Lepidodendron, a mistake easily made from the 

 imperfect state in which these old stems are found. 



I incline to the opinion that the specimens JNo. 236, F. F., 

 Plate 3-1, and Plates 31, 32, 33, represent the root and rootlets 

 of Lepidodendron Stemlergii, but no proof can be given that this 

 opinion is absolutely correct. Lindley and Hutton suspected 

 that their Caulopteris gracilis, pi. 141, and Withanis' Andbathra 

 pulcherrima, were the central pith with its woody cylinder of 

 Stigmaria Jicoides, F.F., v. iii., p. 48. This early and correct 

 observation has either been overlooked or not acknowledged by 

 some later writers. 



