AND STAPHYLOPTERTS PEACHII. 133 



To help to set this to rights, I have taken portions of the plant out 

 of the matrix, and placed them in glass, so that they may be well seen. 

 In addition I send specimens in shale, to show how greatly it 

 varies, and also what a magnificent Pern it must have been. I 

 regret that these are so fragmentary. The "blaes," when exposed, 

 are rendered so friable by wet and sun that they fall to pieces. How 

 many fine and good specimens has it been my lot to see crumble to 

 pieces in my hands when trying to secure them ! 



This Fern must, in some instances, have been two feet high. In 

 two of the specimens sent will be seen the onion-like base, one with 

 rootlets. Sphenojpteris affinis is the Tern of the Calciferous Sand- 

 stones in and around Edinburgh. It is abundant at West Hermand, 

 West Calder; next so at Burdiehouse, in the Limestones. The one 

 figured by Lindley and Hutton came from this quarry. At Slateford 

 and at Grange Quarry, near Burntisland, it is rather rare. It is 

 also occasionally found in the Iron-stone nodules amongst the shales 

 at Wardie and the other places mentioned. 



Staphylopteris ? 



Having given references to works in which this genus has been 

 described and figured by foreign botanists, and also what has 

 been already said about the Fern found in this country and named 

 Staphylopteris {^), I will endeavour to describe it more fully. 



First, I feel it right to say that I have great difficulty in describing 

 the "flower-like part." "Spore-cases" does not altogether fit it; for, 

 although I have searched carefully and tried all means, up to the 

 present time I have not seen a single spore or any thing like one, nor 

 the vestige of a leaf, nor fern-like frond, nor star-like form and 

 trailing thread-like stem creeping along a broad plant, such as are 

 figured from Arkansas ; and so I must use "flower-like form" until 

 something turns up that will be better for it. The one most like 

 mine, as before mentioned, is the " Fruchtstand " figured by Stur in 

 his 'Die Culm-Flora,' pi. xvii. fig. 2, from Altendorf, as the de- 

 scription of the little one he figures, so far as it goes, will perfectly 

 fit my " flower-like forms." I give a free translation of it, made by 

 my son, of the Geological Survey. " The two twigs of a very fine 

 stem, from Altendorf, bear on each tip a slightly open cup-shaped 

 seed-vessel. The right-hand one is , about half-open at the tip, 

 where can be seen the four pointed ends of the cup. The left-hand 

 one shows a cup somewhat wider open, while the upper ends of the 

 tips scarcely appear so pointed." 



I may just mention that, besides the Staphylopteris (?) in the Cal- 

 ciferous Sandstone, I have met with at least four or five other plants, 

 evidently of the same species as those found in the Culm formation 

 of Altendorf. One or two of these are, I think, new to British 

 rocks ; and therefore I have little hesitation in saying that the plants 

 from the Culm formation, as described by Stur, are very closely 

 allied to, if not identical with those of the Calciferous Sandstones of 

 Scotland; and this encourages me to believe that his "Frucht- 



