1870. | CARRULHERS—EOCENE FERN-STEM, 349 
Marcu 9, 1870. 
John Alleyne Bosworth, Esq., of Humberston, Leicestershire ; 
Robert Erskine Brown, Esq., of Wass, Oswaldkirk, Yorkshire ; 
Major E. H. Sladen, Madras Staff Corps, Church Road, Upper Nor- 
wood; and Henry King Spark, Esq., Greenbank, Darlington, were 
elected Fellows of the Society. 
The following communications were read :— 
1. On the Srructure of a Frry-stem from the Lowrr Kocrns of 
Herne Bay, and on its Autres, Rucune and Fossit. By Wm. 
Carrutuers, Hsq., F.L.S., F.G.S., British Museum. 
[Puares XXIV. & XXV.] 
Tue Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis, Linn.) is the noblest and most 
striking of our British ferns. The tuft of fronds under favourable 
circumstances attains a height of nearly 12 feet, and the erect stem 
is sometimes more than 2 feet long. The stem is perennial, grow- 
ing in tufts, formed by the repeated dichotomous division of the 
terminal bud; the whole is matted together by a large mass of ad- 
ventitious wiry roots. The different stems are stout and firm, and 
densely covered with the permanent bases of the petioles. It is 
found in wet, springy, or boggy places all over Britain, and is 
indeed generally distributed over the northern temperate zone. 
With one other genus, Vodea, it forms a small but well-marked 
natural group of ferns, the Osmundacee. 
I have determined the existence of Osmunda regalis in the Nor- 
wich Forest-bed from large specimens collected by the Rev. J. Gunn. 
It is common in the newer submerged forests, having maintained its 
ground through all the changes that have taken place. 
Three closely allied forms have been found in the later Tertiary 
strata; the oldest was obtained from a bed at the base of the 
Miocene period. I have now to add a fourth from the Lower Kocene 
at Herne Bay. 
This species is based upon a portion of a stem in the collection of 
George Dowker, Esq., F.G.S. It is somewhat unequally weathered 
and water-worn, one of its sides being rubbed nearer to the centre 
than the other. The whole of the tissues are replaced by silica, and 
this in so perfect a manner that the most delicate structures are 
exquisitely preserved. 
Externally the specimen exhibits the roundish petioles, irregu- 
larly broken, and marked with a single crescentic vascular bundle. 
Numerous adventitious roots separate the petioles from each other. 
In section the stem is found to have the following structure. 
Near one side, from the unequal wearing of the specimen, is the 
slender true stem: this is composed of a white parenchymatous 
medulla, a narrow scalariform cylinder, and a parenchymatous cor- 
tical layer. The parenchyma of the medulla consists of roundish 
thin-walled cells. The slender vascular cylinder is repeatedly in- 
terrupted by the long slender meshes, from the margin of which 
proceed the vascular bundles that supplied the fronds. These meshes 
