77 



PLATE XXXVIII. 



Sphenopteris quinqueloba. 



Phill. 

 Var. arbuscula. 



This specimen is thus referred to by Professor W. C. 

 Williamson, F.R.S. : — 



April 21th, 1837. 



No. 3 is one of the most elegant little ferns I have yet seen on the 

 Yorkshire coast. Its bi-pinnated character and the form of its pinnules 

 and leaflets are better understood by the drawing [by Professor 

 Williamson himself, and the one reproduced in our Plate] than by my 

 description. The arrangement of its ner ves is very indistinct, all I have 

 been enabled to distinguish being those in the centres of the little rounded 

 leaflets. It is from the productive deposit at Gristhorpe Bay. This does 

 not belong to the Upper Sandstone, as at first supposed by Professor 

 Phillips, neither is it an upthrow of the Lower Sandstone, as once 

 supposed by my father (see your second Volume),* but is a local deposit, 

 distinctly enclosed between the upper and lower beds of the Bath Oolite. 

 (See last number of Proceedings of Geol. Soc. of London.jf From the 

 discovery of minute Entomostraca by Mr. Bean, it appears to have been 

 a fresh water deposit — most probably estuarian. 



(Hutton MSS.) 



* " Fossil Flora," Vol. II. 

 f Geol. Soc. Proa, Vol. II. (1833-1838). 



