in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh. 175 



bipinnatis, pinnis ascendentibus, rapide decrescentibus, pinnulis 

 obliquis, tri-quadrilobis, lobis bi-trifidis, laciniis truncatis approxi- 

 matis brevibus multinerviis, nervulis dichotomis." — Histoire des 

 Vegetauoc Fossiles, torn. i. p. 175. 



But this list of ferns might be much increased. 



While by the luxuriance of their growth and their conse- 

 quent numbers, these small ferns appear to have constituted 

 one of the great divisions of the fossil flora of Burdiehouse, an- 

 other set of plants not less numerous, comprise the doubtful 

 tribe named Lycopodiaceae, which, by their vegetation and mode 

 of increase, approach in character to the comparatively minute 

 vegetables of recent growth, the Lycopodia, or even to the order 

 of Cycadeae of far larger dimensions, while by their reproductive 

 organs they have some little affinity to the Coniferae. In the pre- 

 sent instance, those peculiar structures of vegetable organization, 

 which, separately considered, would seem of different character, 

 but which have been conjointly regarded as the dissevered or- 

 gans of the anomalous Lycopodiaceae, appear in this limestone 

 under circumstances of as great mystery as in other places, ex- 

 cept that the cone, or one of the supposed organs of fructifica- 

 tion, is too frequently in approximation, if not in absolute con- 

 tact with a dichotomous stem, to sanction any other inference 

 than that each is attributable to one and the same plant. Spe- 

 cimens of the Cardiocarpon, or of that species of lenticular and 

 cordiform, or reniform, fruit, equally assigned by M. Adolphe 

 Brongniart to Lycopodiaceae, have not to my knowledge been 

 hitherto found in the limestone. 



With respect to such of the stems of Lycopodiaceae as have 

 been discovered, some of them may be referred to Lepidodendron 

 selaginoides,(P/ates 12 and 113 ofLiNDLEYand Hutton's British 

 Flora), to L. obovatum, (plate 19 bis of the same work), and to 

 L. Steinbergii (plate 112). Among the leaves which have been 

 attributed, though doubted by others, to Lycopodiaceae, are those 

 of Lepidophyllum intermedium, (see Plate 43 of Lindley and 



