MYRIOPHYLLITES GRACILIS. 

 SLENDER MYRIOPHYLL1TE. 



Generic Character. 

 Stem herbaceous, slender ; leaves numerous, linear, small. 



Specific Character. 



MYRIOPHYLLITES gracilis. Stem terminating in a sharp point, the whole 

 thickly covered with hair-like leaves. 



Synonyms. 

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



Description and Locality. 



Stem very long, slender, sometimes straight, sometimes (as represented in the 

 figure) coiled, the base being in the centre. 



Leaves numerous, particularly at the base of the stem, hair-like. 



Found imbedded, horizontally in detached masses separate from the great bed 

 of vegetable matter which covers the coal by an intervening bed of shale This 

 species is however, rarely met with in the same mass with other vegetables, but 

 generally in solitary and thin beds, taking a horizontal position, so that by riving the 

 shale which contains these plants, numbers of them are disclosed on one and the 

 same surface. 



Observations. 



The specimen figured was obtained with several of the same species in El-se-car 

 now Colliery, in August 1818. The props which supported the roof of the coal 

 having been removed a short time previous to that period, there had been only one 

 fall of the super-incumbent shale, and this is probably the most favourable time for 

 collecting them, as in these spontaneous falls the rock naturally splits in those parts 

 where the presence of plants renders it weakest. 



