SOME FERNS FROM THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION. 151 



Fontaine and White are also stated to lie between the veins, a circumstance 

 which is fatal to the view that these bodies are the fructification of their fern. 



Bunbury * had previously figured and described similar organisms on the 

 pinnules of N. Scheuchzeri (N. cordata, Bunbury, not Brongniart),t and had 

 rightly referred them to a disease of the parenchyma or a parasitic fungus. 



In the Carboniferous formation, fossil parasitical fungi occur not only on 

 various spcies of ferns, but on other plants also, and have been figured and 

 described by various writers.^ 



N. keterophylla, Brongt. (with which N. Loshii, Brongt., is now known to 

 be synonymous), has also had its supposed fruit described by Gutbier in 1849, § 

 but in this case, even if the bodies which were supposed by Gutbier to be the 

 fruit of his fern really prove to be its fructification, we are still in ignorance 

 of the fruit of Neuropteris, as Gutbier's fern does not belong to this genus, 

 but to Odontopteris.\\ 



The specimen now described exhibits very clearly the mode and character 

 of the growth of the fruiting portion of Neuropteris. It was discovered by 

 Mr T. Stock, by whom it was communicated to me for examination. 



The fossil shows an axis a about 8 cm. long, which gives off apparently two 

 pairs of lateral pinnae, b, c and d, e. The terminal portion of the specimen 

 ends in a number of dichotomous branchlets, the ultimate divisions being 

 about 8 mm. long, and bearing the fruit at their summits. On the terminal 

 part of the fossil there is no trace of the ordinary foliage pinnules. At b and c 

 are shown what appears to be the remains of a pair of lateral pinnae, each of 

 which seems to have supported four fructifications. Associated with these 

 pinnae are the remains of a small number of ordinary barren pinnules. Of 

 the two lower pinnae, that marked d is very incomplete, and only shows some 

 fragments of the ordinary barren pinnules; the corresponding opposite pinna 

 is, however, more perfect, and shows three fructifications and a portion of a 

 pedicel of a fourth. At the base of this pinnae are preserved some remains of 



* Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, vol. iii. p. 424, pi. xxv. fig. le and 1/. 



f See Zeiller, ' ' Notes sur la Flore houillere des Asturies," Mem. Soc. Geol. du Nord. Lille, p. 6, 

 1882. 



% See Goppert, " Foss. Farrnkrauter," Syst. fit. foss., p. 262, pi. xxxvi. fig. 4, Fxcipulites Neesii; 

 Weiss, Foss. Flora d. jiing. SlJc. u. d. Rothl., p. 19; Schimper, Traite d. paleont. veget, vol. i. p. 141, 

 pi. i. fig. 19, and Explanation to pi. xxxii. figs. 6 7 ; Geinitz, Vers. d. Steinh. in Sadisen, p. 2, pi. xxiii. 

 fig. 13, Excipulites Neesii; pi. xxv. fig. 10, Depazites Rabenliorsti ; Feistmantel, "Der Handendflb'tzzug," 

 &c, Archiv. d. Naturw. Landesdurchforschung von Bohmen, iv. Band, No. 6 (Geol. Abth.), p. 62, pi. i. 

 fig. 1, Xylomides ellipticus; Weiss, " Steinkohlen-Calamarien," Abliandl. z. geol. specialJcarte v. Preussen 

 u. d. Thiiringischen Staaten, Band v. Heft. ii. p. 66, pi. i. fig. 2; Grand' Eury, Flore carbon, du Depart, 

 de la Loire et die centre de la France, p. 10, Excipidites punctatus and Hysterites cordaitis, pi. i. 

 fig. 7, &c. 



§ Die Versteinerungen die Rothliegenden in Sachsen, p. 1 2, pi. iv. figs. 2, 3. 



|| See Weiss, Foss. Flora d. jung. Stic. u. d. Rothl., p. 27 ; also for the fruit of Odontopteris, see 

 Gand' Eury, Flore carbon, du Depart, de la Loire, p. iii. pi. xiii. fig. 4. 



