ON PLANTS IN THE LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 213 



13. On the Discovery of Plants in the Lower Old Red Sandstone 

 of the Neighbourhood of Callander. By B. L. Jack, Esq., 

 F.G.S., and B. Ethebidge, Junr., Esq., F.G.S., of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Scotland. (Eead June 21, 1876.) 



(Communicated by permission of the Director-General of the Geological 



Survey). 



1. Introduction. — Before proceeding to describe the plants from 

 the localities in question, and their geological horizon, we append 

 a brief historical outline of the vegetable remains of the Scotch 

 Old Bed Sandstone. The gradually accumulating evidence of a 

 terrestrial flora in the Old Bed Sandstone of Scotland since the first 

 discovery of plants in that formation by the Bev. Dr. Fleming and 

 Hugh Miller, and the reference of many of them to land rather 

 than aquatic forms, by Charles William Peach, leads all observers 

 interested in the subject to hope that ere long botanists may be 

 in possession of sufficient material to enable them to illustrate the 

 flora of that remote period in a more satisfactory manner than can 

 be done at present, and to restore, in some degree at least, the 

 b} T gone vegetable organisms which then existed. As a slight contri- 

 bution to this end, we have now the pleasure of announcing the 

 discovery by one of us (B. L. J.) of land plants in the Old-Bed- 

 Sandstone series of the neighbourhood of Callander, during the pro- 

 gress of the Geological Survey of that district under the direction 

 of Prof. Geikie, F.B.S. 



2. Bibliography . — One of the earliest notices which has come 

 under our observation is a short paper, in 1811, by the Bev. Mr. 

 Flemiug, entitled, 'A Mineralogical Account of Papa Stour, one of 

 the Zetland Islands '*, wherein it is stated that in Bressay, near 

 Lerwick, " the sandstone includes beds of slate-clay, and contains 

 vegetable impressions similar to those common in the sandstone of 

 the coal-fields of the Lothians." 



In 1831 the same author describes, in a paper " On the Occur- 

 rence of the Scales of Vertebrated Animals in the Old Bed Sandstone 

 of Fifeshire"f, with the scales obtained atParkhill, near Newburgh, 

 and Arbroath, circular flat patches, composed of numerous smaller, 

 contiguous, circular pieces, as probably the conglobate panicles of ex- 

 tinct species of Juncus or Sparganium. It is probable that these 

 are the Crustacean remains now known as Pari: a decipiens, Flem. 



In 1841 Mr. Hugh Miller published his ' Old Bed Sandstone,' in 

 which he described the vegetable remains of that series in the north 

 of Scotland as obscure, consisting mostly of carbonaceous markings 

 such as might be formed " by comminuted seaweed." He further 

 noticed the bifurcating nature of some of his specimens, and that one 

 exhibited scars resembling those of Stigmaria, whilst the branches of 



* Mem. Wernerian jSat.-Hist. Soc. i. p. 175. 



t Cheek's Edinb. Journal of Nat. & Geogr. Science, iii. p. 86, pi. ii. fig. 5, 



