602 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Scotland as Psilophyton dechenianum, to which he 

 refers Haliserites dechenianus Gopp., L e p i d o- 

 dendron nothum Salter, and Lycopodites mil- 

 ler i Salt. The synonymy of Psilophyton decheni- 

 a n u m (Gopp.) is much further extended by Kidston 1 so as to 

 include, among others, Psilophyton robustius of 

 Dawson, Lepidodendron gaspianum Dn. Hosti- 

 nella hostinensis Stur, and the " plant " figured by 

 Vanuxem 2 from the Hamilton beds near North New Berlin N. Y. 

 Proceeding a step further, Malaise in agreement with other Bel- 

 gian paleontologists inclines to the belief that Halise rites 

 dechenianus represents the branches ofLepid oden- 

 dron gaspianum Dn., a conclusion difficult to explain 

 even on the assumption that Goppert's plant is a Psilophyton. 

 Piedboeuf, 3 on the other hand, as the result of his studies of the 

 fragments from the quarry in the Lenne shales (upper middle 

 Devonic) in the vicinity of Grafrath, on the lower Rhine, con- 

 cludes that Halise rites dechenianus Gopp., F u c u s 

 nessigii, Dawson's Psilophyton, and Sphenopteris 

 condrusorum Gilk. belong to a single f ucaceous type 

 which he calls Sargassum dechenianum. A frag- 

 ment showing structure from the same quarry was studied 

 by Solms-Laubach 4 who in 1894 described and illustrated it as 

 Nematophyton dechenianum. 



It is a long way from a taeniate, costate, membranaceous 

 alga to a branch of Lepidodendron. So wide a variance in 

 correlation can hardly be explained except by the supposition 

 that some of the material submitted to the paleobotanies for 

 examination had been wrongly identified or was misinterpreted 

 by the writers themselves. Penhallow 5 in connection with the 

 description of some Devonic plants from New York and Pennsyl- 



1 Cat. Palaeozoic PI. Brit. mus. 1886. p. 232. 



2 Geol. N. Y. 3d dist. 1842. p. 161, fig. 40. 



3 Mitth. d. Yer. Naturw. v. Diisseldorf . 1887. Heft 1, p. 51. 



4 Jahrb. d. k. Preuss. geol. Landesanst. 1894 (1895). p. 88, 91, pi. 2, 

 fig. 2-5. 



5 U. S. nat. mus. Proc. 1893. 16:108. 



