310 FOSSIL FLORA 



related to Conifeiae than to Equiseta. A young branch of Juniperus 

 communis has striations and verticillate leaves, not much different 

 from what these fossil remains would possess. Their exact relation- 

 ship we do not attempt to determine ; but in order to include our 

 species in the Fossil Flora of the district, we place it provisionally 

 under the very general name Coniferites. 



Plate XIII. fig. 8 is a very carefully executed representation of 

 our specimen, the natural size ; and fig. 8 a. is the same, considerably 

 magnified, showing distinctly the ribs and arrangement of the leaf- 

 scars. 



Locality. Sea-coast below Lammerton, in a carbonaceous shale. 



Genus Carpolithes (Brongn.). 



This genus was established to include the remains of fossil Fruits 

 whose affinities are doubtful. Unquestionably it is a heterogeneous 

 assemblage, but facts must be collected and recorded before a satis- 

 factory determination of natural affinities can be made ; and it is 

 necessary that the observations should be arranged under some 

 general name, for the sake of future reference and study. 



Carpolithes ovatus (Tate). Plate XIII. figs. 7 & 7 a. 



We give figures of two specimens of this remarkable fossil, which 

 seems to have been a bivalve fruit, and of which one valve was more 

 convex than the other ; fig. 7 is the interior of the more convex, and 

 fig. 7 a, a cast of the other. The fruit is ovate-acuminate ; the 

 interior presents a broadish margin, and a central ridge sloping to the 

 margin, pointed at the upper end, and obtuse at the lower, where 

 there is an elongate sinus ; sulcations from the sinus curve outward 

 towards the extreme margins. 



It is hoped that further inquiry may throw some light on the 

 affinity of this fossil. 



Locality. Bamburgh, in a red slaty sandstone along with other 

 obscure vegetable remains. 



Such then are the plants, so far as we have been able to distinguish 

 them, which form our Coal-beds and which grew in our district 

 during the Mountain Limestone era. The Flora is, to a large extent, 

 the same as that of the earlier Coal-measures, and includes most of the 

 genera, and some of the species, characteristic of these measures ; but 

 the relative number of Ferns is widely different : in our district they 

 are exceedingly scanty, but in the earlier Coal-measures they are 

 most abundant. Though the vegetation of our district was rank, the 

 Flora was not varied ; only a few orders of plants flourished ; none 

 of the lowest was present — no algae — no fungi — no lichens — no 

 mosses ; nor do any forest trees appear similar to those which now 

 adorn our woods, excepting Coniferae ; but acrogenous plants were 

 then developed in enormous numbers, and on a scale of magnitude 

 which contrasts with their dwarfish proportions in existing A'egetation. 



