1857.] BUNBURY NEUROPTERIS. 24 7 



I will conclude with a few remarks on some of the species of Neu- 

 ropteris. But first I must observe that the number of described 

 species is probably much too great, and that the greater proportion 

 of them would probably be found, if completely known, to be varia- 

 tions or modifications of a few real specific types. Many of them 

 have been described from very imperfect specimens, often indeed 

 mere fragments. Now in those kinds of Neuropteris which are best 

 known, we see that (as in very many recent Ferns) the size, outline, 

 and position of the leaflets vary very much in different parts of the 

 same frond. In some of those recent Ferns which I have compared 

 with them, we see a remarkable degree of variation, both in the same 

 frond, and in different fronds from the same root. In making use, 

 therefore, of such imperfect materials as we most often have before 

 us in the case of fossil plants, we are exceedingly liable to create false 

 species, and to describe under several distinct names different frag- 

 ments which may even have grown originally from one root. I doubt 

 whether any judicious botanist would venture to establish new species 

 of recent plants from materials so scanty as those on which very 

 many fossil species have been founded. 



I may take this opportunity of observing that my Odontopteris 

 subcuneata * is probably the terminal portion of the frond of some 

 large Neuropteris, though I cannot positively assign it to any de- 

 scribed species ; at any rate, a species ought not to be founded on 

 so imperfect a fragment as the only one I have seen of this supposed 

 Odontopteris. In the absence of a midrib, it resembles the Neuro- 

 pteris auriculata, a plant the extreme variableness of which has been 

 well shown by Geinitzf. This author has pointed out, that some of 

 the many various forms of leaflets belonging to that species have 

 been described as belonging to the genus Cyclopteris. In like man- 

 ner the round lateral leaflets of Neuropteris cor data, which I have 

 figured £ from Cape Breton specimens, have altogether the charac- 

 ters of Cyclopteris. 



Those common Ferns of the Coal-measures which have generally 

 been referred to Cyclopteris {Cyclopteris obliqua, C. orbicularis, C. 

 dilatata, and some others), and of which Brongniart has formed his 

 genus Nephropteris, are most probably, as that author has remarked, 

 young or anomalous fronds of different species of Neuropteris, ana- 

 logous to the barren fronds of the recent genus Platycerium. 



1 . Neuropteris gigantea, Ad. Brongn. I believe- the N. Martini 

 of Goeppert (the Phytolithus Osmundce regalis of Martin) to be 

 identical with this species, which is one of the most common in the 

 Derbyshire coal-field. Among the specimens received from Mr. 

 Wright, from Oldham, Lancashire, I find a variety (as I believe it) 

 of N. gigantea, having the leaflets remarkably curved upwards, 

 almost hooked, or what botanists call scimitar-shaped. It occurs 

 intermixed with the common form, with which it agrees in all other 

 characters that can be observed. I call it Neuropteris gigantea, 

 YBX.falcata. 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iii. p. 427. f Steinkohl. in Sachsen, p. 21. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iii. pi. 21. fig. 1 A and 1 B. 



