HYDATICA PROSTRATA. 



PROSTRATE HYDATICA. 



Generic Character. 

 Stem arborescent, jointed, branched ; leaves long, linear. 



Specific Character. 

 HYDATICA prostrata. Stent jointed, slightly striated ; joints formed with 

 irregular sutures, from whence arise tufts of linear leaves. 



Synonyms. 

 This fossil plant has not hitherto been found described, or figured in any work 

 on the subject. 



Description and Locality. 



Stem herbaceous, cylindrical, jointed, probably horizontal when recent, the length 

 of the specimen, of which a part only is represented in the plate, was 8 feet 5 inches ; 

 striated, branched. 



Branches disposed irregularly, divided at a short distance from the stem into two 

 smaller branches, which spread wide from each other, and are blunt at their ends. 



Joints of the stem leaf-bearing. 



Leaves in tufts at the joints, linear, resembling those of our common grasses, 

 appear to have floated when in a recent state. 



Found imbedded, in a compressed state, in the shale which forms the roof of 

 the coal bed in the upper El-se-car coal-mine, near Wentworth, in the West Riding of 

 Yorkshire, the property of Earl Fitzwilliam. 



Fragments of this fossil plant may also be observed in the roofs of several cham- 

 bers of that colliery from whence the coal has been extracted, and which are called 

 by the colliers, " Old Binks." 



Observations. 



This singular fossil plant does not appear to belong to any genus, hitherto 

 formed by the authors who have written on these subjects, and therefore a new genus, 

 hjjdatica, has been formed for its reception ; several other species of which will be 

 found in this work. 



These plants seem to have been a genus peculiar to fresh-water lakes ; and to 

 have been composed of a horizontal or creeping stem, sending up slender branches, 

 which like many of our present aquatic plants were floated by their leaves. 



In the arrangements of Schlotheim and Brongniart, who consider only the con- 

 struction of the leaves, this plant would be a species of their genus, poacites. 



