Paleobotany and Zoology. 239 



This paper adds much to, and indeed goes far toward satisfacto- 

 rily completing the botanical knowledge of Dictyophyllum and 

 Camptopteris, though these are already fairly well known genera. 

 The series of exceedingly beautiful specimens mainly from the Rat 

 of Bjuf, Palsjo, and Hor, in Skone, southern Sweden, described 

 by Professor Nathorst, clearly entitles these forms to rank 

 among the most interesting and striking of ferns. Dictyo- 

 phyllum and Camptopteris had horizontally trailing and repeat- 

 edly forking stems, from the upper hide of which the long 

 petioled, bilobately palmate to fan-shaped, bipinnate and netted- 

 veined leaves arose. The attachment of the leaves is indicated 

 by the old leaf base scars, with horse-shoe supply bundles, on the 

 upper side of the stems or rhizomes. The arms of the bilobate 

 fork or Y-shaped rachis of D ictyophyllum are of varying and 

 moderate length, those of Camptopteris very long with spiral 

 insertion of the secondary segments or pinnae. Leaves of D. spec- 

 tabilis and D. exile were a full meter wide. Fine examples of 

 the fertile leaves show the large annulate sporangia covering the 

 entire under surface of the netted-veined laminae, a clear group- 

 ing into sori scarcely appearing, although some small number of 

 sporangia as 5 to 7 to the sorus is suspected. 



Relationships are to the rare existing fern Dipteris and to 

 ttausmannia, so well and fully figured from the Quedlinburg 

 Lower Cretaceous specimens, by Richter. g. r. w. 



17. Bemerkungen ilber Clathropteris meniscoicles Brongniart 

 und Rhizomopteris cruciata Nathorst ; von A. G. Nathorst. 

 Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakad. Handl., 19o6, Bd. xli, No. 2, 14 

 pp. and 3 pis. — In this brief but important paper is figured the sup- 

 posed type of Brongniart's C. meniscoicles, a fragment of an enor-. 

 mous netted-veined palmate frond ; also several smaller but some- 

 what similar leaves, which are decided to belong to the branches 

 and crosslike stems known as Rhizomopteris. These specimens are 

 from the Rat of Skone, which has yielded so many interesting 

 plants. None are fertile, relationships apparently being to Dip- 

 teris ; although if any of the great group of fossil fern leaves of 

 which Dipteris is sole survivor were ever found persistently 

 infertile one would at once begin to wonder if such might not be 

 the leaves of Pteridosperms or Cycadophytes (or even of some 

 primitive angiospermous type). G. R. w. 



18. The Occurrence of Germinating Spores in Stauropteris 

 oldhamia ; by D. H. Scott. The New Phytologist, 1906, vol. 

 v, No. 7, pp. 170-172 — This is the second example thus far 

 observed of germination in fern spores from the Lower Coal 

 Measures. The sporangium illustrated is quite filled with well- 

 defined germinating spores, and is of the multiseriate annular 

 type, indicating a Botryopteridean affinity. According to Dr. 

 Scott, these germinating spores " conform to the Fern-type, and 

 leave little room for doubt that the mode of reproduction of 

 Stauropteris oldhamia was essentially that of a true Fern." 



g. r. w. 



