IN THE LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 215 



found at Stromness by Dr. Fleming, provisionally named by him 

 Stroma obscura, " in all probability a plant of the sea"*. It consisted 

 of a " flattened cylinder traversed above and below by a mesial groove 

 extending to the extremities." A figure is given of a fine Lepidoden- 

 dron from Thurso t, and a description of the Clockbriggs specimen, 

 which was four feet in length, and threw off two branches at an 

 acute angle. The specimen was covered with a brittle coal, and 

 internally was converted into a brown calcareous substance similar to 

 that of the celebrated Granton and Craigleith trees +. Mr. Miller 

 describes some supposed Calamites from Thurso §, 9 inches to 1 foot 

 in length, and figures a plant discovered by Dr. Fleming, with 

 the usual thick rachis of palaeozoic plants, and pinnules even smaller 

 than those of our true Maiden-hair ||. Not the least interesting of 

 the plants figured in the ' Testimony ' is the Palceopteris (Cyclopteris) 

 hibernicus, Forbes, from the Upper Old Red Sandstone of Preston- 

 haugh, near Dunse ^[. 



We are indebted to the late Mr. J. "W. Salter for one of the first 

 connected accounts of these old plants. His paper " On some Re- 

 mains of Terrestrial Plants in the Old Red Sandstone of Caithness " 

 was published in 1858**. He there describes and figures " Coniferous 

 wood " allied to Dadoxylon of the Coal Measures, " Rootlets," and 

 two plants to which specific names were assigned, Lycopodites 

 Milleri, Salter, and Lepidodendron nothum, Salter (non Unger). 



In the same year also (1858) appeared a short paper by Dr. 

 J. A. Smith, " Notes of Fossils from the Old Red Sandstone of the 

 South of Scotland "ft, in which plants similar to those previously 

 discussed by the Rev. J. Duncan are noticed from Denholm-Hill 

 Quarry, Roxburghshire. 



To his original description of the genus Psilopliyton in 1859, Dr. J. 

 W. Dawson %t appended a few remarks on Scotch Old-Red-Sandstone 

 plants. He considers the dichotomous roots described by Salter, and 

 the bifurcating plants noticed by Hugh Miller, to belong to his genus 

 Psilopliyton, and probably to P. princeps, Dn., or P. robustius, Dn. 



1859. — Appended to the late SirR. I. Murchison's paper " On the 

 succession of the older Rocks in the Northernmost counties of 

 Scotland "§§, are a series of figures by Mr. J. W. Salter, identical with 

 those given in certain editions of ' Siluria/ with an additional figure 

 of a large stem with subalternate lateral branches found at Thurso 

 by Mr. C. "W. Peach, and named after him by Mr. Salter Caulopteris 

 Peachii ||||, and another representing the young shoot of a coniferous 

 (?) plant with leaves from Duncansby Head ^[^f. 



In 1862 Prof. R. Harkness communicated to the Geological 

 Society a paper " On the Position of the Pteraspis-heds, and on 



* Testimony of the Eocks, p. 430. t Ibid. p. 432. 



J Ibid. p. 447. % Ibid, pp. 433, 434. 



t| Ibid. p. 445, fig. 122. ^ Ibid. p. 454, fig. 124. 



** Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xiv. pp. 72-76. 



+ t Proc. Eoyal Phys. Soc. Edinb. ii. p. 36. 



}J Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xv. p. 482. 



§ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xv. p. 407, fig. 13. 



|| Ibid. p. 408, fig. Ha. f f Ibid. fig. Ub. 



