FROM THE HUTTON COLLECTION. 137 



FOLTAGE. 



268.— Dicranium ? (Plate 5, f. 2, and Plate G). 



Portion of stem with a small branch lying close but not at- 

 tached to the stem. Numerous needle-shaped leaves with a 

 distinct mid-rib one and a half inches long. The leaves 

 arranged somewhat spirally round the branch and on the stem. 

 The stem strongly striated or furrowed and with depressed 

 leaf-scars not distinctly defined. 

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



Remarks. — The first three specimens, Nos. 264, 265, 266, 

 have the appearance of a compressed flattened stem, the outer 

 cortex probably of a branch of some tree, for broader pieces with 

 the same leaf-scar markings occasionally occur. The surface is 

 very finely striated longitudinally, and ornamented with minute 

 sub -triangular scars, somewhat curved above and with a raised 

 dot in the centre. The scars are spirally arranged, and the sub- 

 stance of the cortex is so thin that the depressions of the scars 

 on the opposite side are often visible. ISTo. 67 is apparently a 

 finer inner layer of the same plant, the leaf-scars being repre- 

 sented by very small dots, but on it, in addition, is a somewhat 

 oval branch-scar, which was at first mistaken for a scar of Ulo- 

 dendron, which it much resembles, but differs from the TJloden- 

 droid scar in many points. The specimen ]No. 268, Plate 6, 

 shews a portion of two smaller branches of the same species 

 with the leaves and leaf-scars attached. The shape of the leaf- 

 scars on this smaller specimen appears to be identically the same 

 as those on the larger, and seems to connect the genus Dicranium 

 with Rhytidodendron, the one being the foliage of the other. 

 Plate 5, f. 2, from a specimen in the Museum of the Natural 

 History Society, shews a very small twig or branch with its 

 crowded leaves. The leaves are so closely placed, and overlap 

 each other so much, that I cannot determine whether the leaves 

 bifurcate or divide at the apex into two or more parts. But for 

 the present I refer them to the above quoted species. 



