EOCENE FERNS. 



51 



sociated with abundant remains of Goniopteris stiriaca and Osmunda lipiUum, and assumed 

 by Heer to belong to tlie latter {op. cit., p. 31), "as being the commonest " Fern. Nothing 

 of this nature has been met with at Bournemouth in beds in which the pinnae of Osmunda 

 are alone massed together ; but at La Rochette/ where Osmunda lignitum is absent and 

 Goniopteris stiriaca present, identical remains are found and described by Ileer as 

 portions of the latter Fern. 



PI. iv, figs. 4«, 5, 6,^ represent parts of the rachis of a Fern, but there is nothing to 

 support Prof. Heer's idea that these belong to his Fecopteris lignitum {pp. cit., p. 30), as 

 no pinnules were found attached to them. Against his views we have the fact, that the 

 rachis of Osmunda is rarely met with in the fossil state, and is easily recognised by the 

 deep scars left by the deciduous pinnse, also that pinnae have never been found attached 

 under the conditions in which the Bovey and Bournemouth specimens are preserved ; 

 they have in fact but once been met with attached, and that under totally different condi- 

 tions of preservation.^ Indeed, Prof. Heer's own figures show them in closer juxta- 

 position with G. stiriaca, the pinnae of which have everywhere been met with attached to 

 this kind of rachis. The enlarged fig. 6, pi. vi, is no portion of this Osmunda,- but 

 (when reduced to its natural size) is seen to be a fragment of Anemia. Compare our 

 fig. 1, PI. VIII. 



PI. vii, fig. 1, represents a fossil very abundant at Bovey, and of which specimens are 

 still preserved in the Museum at Jermyn Street. They are called by Heer " large rhizomes 

 quite covered with petioles" {op. cit., p. 31). We are assured, however, by Mr. Baker, 

 of the Kew Herbarium, associated with Sir W. Hooker in his ' Synopsis Filicum,' 

 that, in his opinion, they are not even portions of any Ferns, but apparently more like 

 stems of the Australian Grass-trees ; and in this view we entirely coincide. The rhizomes 

 with cicatricules, fig. 2, loc. cit., also do not appear to us to belong to Osmunda. 



Perhaps the most remarkable, because completely unfounded, of the assertions which 

 Heer made regarding this Fern is to be found at pages 25 and 33, op. cit., where, only 

 because he fancied it might be an arborescent Ilemitelia, and the pinnae are abundant, he 

 states that its stems and those of Sequoia " certainly contribute the greatest amount of 

 lignite," and " in the shade of the forest throve numerous Ferns, one species of which 

 (P. lignitmn) seems to have formed trees of imposing grandeur." The facts, however, 

 as far as we know them, are that no vestiges of stems of Tree-ferns have ever been found 

 at Bovey or in any British Eocene bed ; while Tree-ferns in their native habitats, as in 

 Australia, seem to form a mere undergrowth to trees which are really of imposing 

 o-randeur. 



It is strange that in each case in which Heer has figured this Fern he has permitted 

 the lithographer to make the leaf an impossible one, by colouring the outer pair of veins 



1 Heer, ' Flor. Tert. Helv.,' vol. i, p. 32, pi. viii, fig. 7. ^ ' Lignites of Bovey Tracey.' 



^ See reference to O. Grutsckreiberi, Stur, in list of synonyms The original specimen is in the 

 Imperial Geological Institute at Vienna. 



