J. W. Dawson— LYto.n Fh,r„. of tin United States. 339 



obtained, and vei 

 ties. While Hal 

 regarded them as animal structures, allied to bydroids, Lesque- 

 reux has described some of the Carboniferous forms under the 

 generic name Trochophyllum, which is however more appropri- 

 ate to plants with verticillate leaves which are included in this 

 genus. Before I had seen* the publications of Hall and Les- 

 quereux on the subject, 1 had in a paper on Scottish Devonian 

 Plants,* separated this group from the genus Lycopoditcs and 

 formed for it the genus 'Phlnpln/lon, in allusion to the feather- 

 it of several of the species. My reasons for this, and 

 my present information as to their nature may be stated as 

 follows : 



Schimper, in his "Paleontologie Vegetale," (possibly from 

 inattention to the descriptions or want of access to the speci- 

 mens) doubts the Lyeopodia •eons eharact< r of species of Lyco- 

 podites described in my published papers on plants of the 

 iM-onmn of America and in my Report of 1871. Of these 

 L. Itir/iurdsoiii and L. MiUln.-irl. arc undoubtedly very near to 

 the modern genus Lyopodium. L. Vaaujfnuii is, I admit, more 

 problematical; but Schimper could scarcely have supposed it 

 to be a fern or a fueoid allied to dtulerpa had lie noticed that 

 both in my species and the allied L pen naeformis of Goeppert, 

 which he does not appear to notice, the pinnules are articulated 

 »Pon the stem, and leave scars where thev have fallen oik 

 When in Belfast it, 1 «7<l, my attention was again directed to 

 the affinities of these plants by finding in Professor Thomson's 

 collection a specimen from Caithness, which shows a plant 

 apparently of this kind, with the same long narrow pinna; or 

 tached, however, to thicker stems, and rolled up in a 

 circulate manner. It seems to be a plant in vernation, and the 

 parts are too much crowded and pressed together to admit of 

 irately figured or described; but I think [ can scarcely 



in this case would favor a relationship to ferns; but some 

 ['.vcopodiaceous plants also roll themselves in this way, and 

 so do the branches of the plants of the genus Psilophylon. 



The specimen consists of a short erect stem, on which are 

 t l,;ir, 'd somewhat stout alternate branches, extending obliquely 

 putward and then curving inward in a circulate manner. The 

 jower ones appear to produce .on their inner sides short lateral 

 "I'aneldets, and upon these and also upon the curved extremi- 

 «« Ol the branches, are long narrow linear leaves placed in a 

 '"'"'■' ded manner. The specimen is thus not a spike of fructifi- 

 cation, but a young stem or branch in vernation, and which 

 when unrolled would be of the form of those peculiar pinnate 

 * Canadian Naturalist, 1878. 



