No. 378.) REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 463 
PALEONTOLOGY. 
Spencerites.'— This genus is founded upon the Lepidostrobus 
insignis and Lepidodendron spenceri of Williamson, whose material 
consisted of cones with their detached peduncles, but no vegeta- 
tive parts. The specimens were derived from the coal measures of 
Lancashire and Yorkshire, and were first described by Williamson in 
1878. 
A review of this material in conjunction with additional specimens 
from different sources, convinces Dr. Scott that the characters pre- 
sented by the cones are such as to demand the institution of a new 
genus under the name of Spencerites. To this are assigned William- 
son’s Lepidodendron spenceri, from which the generic name is taken, 
and Lepidostrobus insignis, under the name of S. insignis. The essen- 
tial features of this species are found in the course of the leaf trace 
bundles; in the peltate form of the sporophylls which consist of a 
short, cylindrical pedicel expanding into a relatively large lamina ; 
the approximately spherical sporangia which are quite free from the 
pedicel, but attached by a narrow base to the upper surface of the 
lamina where it begins to expand, and in the characteristics of 
the spores which are intermediate between the microspores and mac- 
rospores of Lepidostrobus and are provided with a hollow wing formed 
from the dilated cuticle about the equator. 
Spencerites majusculus, a new species, isa large plant with larger 
cones ; the sporophylls are more numerous, but the spores are much 
smaller, form quadrants of a sphere, and have narrow wings along 
their three angles. 
The genus differs from Lepidostrobus chiefly on account of 
the different mode of insertion of the sporangia, the structure of the 
Sporangial wall and of the spaces, and also the whole habit of 
the cone. 
Cheirostrobus.2— From the well-known Calciferous Sandstone 
Series at Pettycur, on the Firth of Forth, there has been obtained an 
entirely new type of cone which Dr. Scott describes under the name 
of Cheirostrobus pettycurensis, thus adding to the eight distinct types 
1 Scott, D. H. On the Structure and Affinities of Fossil Plants from the Palzxo- 
zoic Rocks, Phil. Trans. R. Soc., Ser. B, 189 (1897), 83-106. 
2 Scott, D. H. On Cheirostrobus, a New Type of Fossil Cone from the Lower 
Carboniferous Strata (Calciferous Sandstone Series), Phil. Trans. R. Soc., Ser. 
B, 189 (1897), 1-34. 
