15 

 EUPHORBITES VULGARIS. 



COMMON EUPHORBITES. 



Generic Character. 



Stem arborescent, simple, subcorneal, furrowed ; cicatrices on the ridge, generally 

 nicked. 



Specific Character. 



EUPHORBITES vulgaris. Cicatrices flat, fishshaped, the upper part trigonal ; 

 glands two, which when the bark is absent appear as twin tubercles on the ligneous 

 fibres. 



Synonyms. 



This fossil plant does not appear to have been described or figured by any author. 



Description and Locality. 



Stem attains the length of nine feet, very wide at bottom, and narrower at the 

 upper extremity, furrowed. 



Furrows at the upper end narrow, but at the lower end much expanded, as shewn 

 in the lower figure ; ridges of the upper extremity pipelike, parted by a simple line ; 

 but those of the lower extremity wide, flat, and parted by a groove of equal breadth. 



Cicatrices on the bark flat, resembling fishes, the upper part three-sided, the 

 upper angle forked, the lower rounded, glands two, towards the upper part of the 

 cicatrix. When the bark is absent, the woody part presents a fibrous appearance, 

 and these glands remaining form twin tubercles, close together in the upper part of 

 the stem, but in the lower part distant, although the cicatrices appear to have been 

 nearer together in the longitudinal direction. There is also a small dot on the cica- 

 trix between the two glands, which is but superficial, and does not appear on the 

 woody part of the stem. 



Pith slender, passes up one side of the trunk. 



Found in the greatest part of the coal formations of Europe : either in immense 

 masses incumbent on the coal, or in a vertical position, in which position its lower 

 extremity frequently rests on the thin shale which covers the coal. 



Observations. 



The specimen from which the drawing was made is now in the possession of the 

 Rev. Samuel Sharp, Vicar of Wakefield, who procured it from a sandstone quarry 

 near Altofts in Yorkshire, the property of Sir Edward Dodsworth, who has also one 

 of the same species in his garden, where it forms one side of the entrance to a grotto. 



In one of the abandoned chambers of the upper El-se-car coal mine, seven trunks 

 of this plant were suspended freely from the roof ; some of them projected a foot, and 

 the largest measured eight feet in circumference. 



The specimen figured is nine feet long, five feet in circumference at the lower 

 extremity, and only one foot nine inches at the upper. 



The first figure represents a sketch of the whole trunk, and shews also the situation 

 of the pith at C. The second figure represents a portion of the upper part, as at A. 

 fig. 1. of the natural size, in which is shewn the different appearance of the bark and 

 imbarked surface. The third figure shews a portion of the lower extremity, from 

 about B. fig. 1. in which the deep concave furrow, the flattened ridge, the twin glands 

 placed at a greater distance apart in the horizontal direction, but much nearer in tho 

 longitudinal, are exhibited. 



