3834 Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. 



of Sphenopteris elegans." The author began his paper by quoting from Mr. Bunbury's 

 description of a fossil fern of the North American coal measures, published in the 

 ' Journal of the Geological Society' for 1852. " It is rare," says Mr. B., " to find in 

 the ferns of the carboniferous period, even the stipes or leaf-stalk completely preserved 

 down to its base ; the only specimen of the kind that I have seen is a beautiful Sphe- 

 nopteris (I believe Sphenopteris elegans) from the Edinburgh coal-field, in the collec- 

 tion of Mr. Hugh Miller." What is deemed rare by Mr. Bunbury, one of our highest 

 authorities in fossil Botany, must be regarded as absolutely so ; and Mr. M. now ex- 

 hibited, he said, and attempted to describe, this unique fossil, in the hope of adding 

 a very little to what was already known regarding one of the most beautiful and cha- 

 racteristic ferns of the lower coal measures. From a suite of specimens on the Socie- 

 ty's table, it would be found that, save in one particular, the entire frond of Spheno- 

 pteris elegans could be restored, so as to be rendered as palpable to conception as the 

 fronds of the green brake, which in one respect it resembled, that flourished last season 

 on the sunny hill -sides or amid the deep woodland glades of our country. In one 

 important particular, however, the restoration must be incomplete. So far as Mr. M. 

 knew, no specimen of any coal-measure species of this ancient genus exhibits the fruc- 

 tification ; and we must be content, therefore, to acquaint ourselves simply with the 

 general outline and venation of the plant. All previous attempted restorations of 

 Sphenopteris had been unfortunate. It seems to have been inferred, from the mi- 

 nuteness of the pinnules, that the frond to which they belonged had also been minute ; 

 and so in the restorations, — such as that of the late Dr. Mantell, in his ' Wonders of 

 Geology,' and that of the interesting oil painting of carboniferous plants in the Mu- 

 seum attached to the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, — restorations introduced, however, 

 rather for pictorial than scientific purposes, — the large, eminently handsome, and ap- 

 parently solitary frond given to the plant by Nature, has been represented by mere 

 dwarfish pinnae, rising gregariously, as in Polypodium and Asplenium, from a com- 

 mon rhizoma. In one important respect Sphenopteris elegans resembled Pteris aqui- 

 lina, — our common hill-side bracken. It was furnished with a stout leafless rachis, 

 exceedingly similar in form to that of Pteris. Nay, it exhibited so completely, in Mr. 

 M.'s specimen, the same club-like slightly bent termination, the same gradual dimi- 

 nution in thickness, and the same smooth surface, that one accustomed to see this part 

 of the bracken used as a thatch — and a very durable thatch the stipites of the bracken 

 do form — can scarcely doubt that the stipes of Sphenopteris would have served the 

 purpose equally well. Evidently, were it still in existence to be employed for that 

 purpose, a roof thatched with Sphenopteris, with its pinnae and leaflets concealed, and 

 only its club-like stems exposed row above row, in the ordinary style of the fern-thatcb- 

 er, could not be distinguished — so far as form and size went — from a roof thatched 

 with Pteris. At a height of from seven to eight inches above its club-like termina- 

 tion, the stem divided into two equal parts, which shot upwards with a divergence that 

 rendered the fork between an angle of about 30° ; and at unequal heights, a little far- 

 ther up, each of these divided stems bifurcated, in turn, at about the same angle, and 

 then shot up, in some individuals, without further bifurcation ; while in others they 

 bifurcated again, and yet again. It is probable that, as in many of the recent ferns, 

 the greater divisions of the plant were constant, while the smaller varied according to 

 the richness of the soil, and the consequent size and degree of development attained 

 by the frond. As in Pteris aquilina, there shot out from these main steins numerous 

 pinnae irregularly alternate, and which, becoming less compound as they approached 



