ERIAN (DEVONIAN) PLANTS. 



303 



granular crystallization of the quartz with which the specimen is 

 mineralized. 



Miscellaneous Specimens from New YorTc. 



Numerous large petioles of Perns occur in collections sent to me 

 by Mr. Wright and Dr. Parker of Ithaca, New York. J3eing desti- 

 tute of the fronds, it seems unnecessary to describe them more 

 particularly ; but they indicate the possibility that the Erian of New 

 York may yet afford a rich Pern-flora comparable with that of St. 

 John, New Brunswick. In collections made by Mr. Wright are 

 also specimens of those singular plants, supposed to be Algae, 

 which Hall has named Dictyophyton. A very fine specimen of one 

 of the species was figured in my paper of 1863, under the name 

 Uphantamia chemungensis, originally bestowed on one of the species 

 by Yanuxem, but which is rejected by Hall in favour of the generic 

 name above given. The specimens sent by Mr. Wright do not give 

 any additional information as to the mode of growth of these curious 

 forms ; but he has found in the Hamilton formation, not previously 

 known to contain these plants, a species probably distinct from 

 those described by Hall, and which may be named D. hamiltonense ; 

 though if these plants were really Algae, the supposed species 

 may be nothing more than varietal forms or stages of growth. 



The specimens referred to are unequally turbinate or unequally 

 conical in form, rapidly expanding from the base, and marked with 

 sharp longitudinal ridges, crossed with much finer and more 

 frequent revolving lines. The largest specimen is almost 1| inch in 

 diameter, narrowing to less than 1 inch in a length of less than 

 2 inches. 



The remarkable spiral plant belonging to the genus Spirophyton 

 of Hall, the " Cauda-galli fucoid" of the earlier Reports on the State 

 of New York, is found in the same beds with Dictyophyton. It is 

 also found, as mentioned in my paper of 1863, in Gaspe, where it 

 ranges from the Upper Silurian into the Lower Devonian. Plants 

 of the same genus have been found by the late Prof. Hartt on the 

 Eio Tapajos, in Brazil, in beds referred to the Carboniferous period, 

 though some other plants found in the same beds might in North 

 America be supposed to be Tipper Devonian in age. In MS. descrip- 

 tions of these plants sent to Prof. Hartt, and which may have been 

 published in his Beports, I named this species S. brasiliense. It is 

 of interest as showing the very wide distribution of this form in the 

 palaeozoic seas. 



Plants from the Erian {Devonian) of St. John, New Brunswick. 



I have recently obtained, from the widow of the late lamented 

 Prof. Hartt, the remainder of his Devonian plant- collections, con- 

 sisting principally of duplicates of the more common species found 

 at St. John, but with a few fragments indicating forms not pre- 

 viously known to me. 



Since the publication of my papers and reports on the fossils of 

 the St.-John beds, they have been repeatedly referred to by European 



