﻿Fucoids of the Cincinnati Group. 



159 



Another genus, Blastophycus, was established by the same authors at the 

 same time and in the same article as the preceding, and one species was de- 

 scribed. It consists of a bud-like protuberance at the end of a stem or two 

 stems, and bears so much resemblance to the enlarged end of T. lanosum, 

 that there is little doubt about its being the same thing. The fact of its 

 being so fragmentary and having so close a resemblance to lanosum, is 

 sufficient reason for putting them together. 



Genus Buthotrephis, Hall. 1847. 



The genus Buthotrephis was characterized in 1847 by Professor James 

 Hall, in Palceontology of New York, Vol. I., p. 8. It included certain 

 fossils or "plants," with sub-cylindric or compressed, branching stems. 

 Since, the establishment of the genus, a number of species and varieties 

 have been described, and five have been recorded as found in the Cincin- 

 nati group. Of these five, two are burrows of annelids, two are Graptolites, 

 and the other is a water mark. None of the five are plants, and it is doubt- 

 ful if any of the forms referred to the genus are Algae. 



Buthotrephis ramuhsa, S. A. Miller, was described in the Cincinnati 

 Quarterly Journal of Science, Vol. I., page 235, as a plant consisting of 

 short-branched fragments, smooth or rugose, and scattered irregularly over 

 and through nodules of indurated clay. From its general aspect it doubt- 

 less represents the burrows of some animal form. Parts of the burrows 

 are on the surface, and parts below it, as if the worm had dived beneath 

 the surface and come up again in another place. 



B. succulosa, Hall, was described in the Palceontology of New York) 

 Vol. I., p. 23, as having thick, succulent, branching and apparently hol- 

 low stems. It is evidently a burrow. It assumes various forms. Those 

 described by Hall as B. palmata, and B. impudica, (Ibid, Vol. II., p. 

 20), are evidently the same as B. succulosa, though they come from a dif- 

 ferent horizon. 



B. filciformis, James, described in the Paleontologist, p. 9, as a fossil 

 with a slender, curved stem, with lateral branches set at an angle of 45 

 degrees to the stem, is referred, in the absence of figure or specimen, to the 

 water mark called Chloephycus, as already adverted to. (This Journal, 

 Vol. VII., p. 130). 



The remaining two forms, B. gracilis, and its variety crassa, so long- 

 considered as plants, are not plants at all, but Graptolites, belonging to the 

 genus Dendrograptus, Hall. A great deal of confusion exists in respect 

 to this species and its varieties, and a full history of it will here be at- 

 tempted. 



