Two other species have been obtained from the Oolite. These are O. acuminata, 
and O. Beanii, and one or two others from the new red sandstone, but of these 
different species only one or two specimens of each have been detected. 
On my own part, after a very diligent and protracted examination of extensive 
deposits of the lower lias, I have been enabled to obtain only a solitary specimen 
of this rare genus of fossil plants. This specimen is probably the representative 
of a new species, and it exhibits several well-preserved characters of form and 
structure. Some essential points of difference may be traced between it and other 
hitherto described species of Otopteris. The leaflets are attached to the leaf- 
stalk by about half the width of their bases ; they are winged, and closely set, 
partially overlapping each other, not somewhat wide apart, as in Otopteris obtusa, 
where there is invariably an intervening open space between them. They are also 
less obtuse at their terminal ends than in O. obtusa, as may be seen by comparing 
the specimen with the figures of that species in Plate 128, of Lindley and Hutton, 
in the third volume of Fossil Flora. 
From the rarity of the more perishable parts of plants in the lower lias, it may 
be inferred that they were seldom carried into the ocean, or were decomposed by 
the action of the sea- water before the accumulating sediment at the bottom of the 
liassic sea had covered them up ; hence it is that perhaps so few vegetable remains 
are found in the deposit. I have closely examined acres of quarried stone in 
many different localities, and the specimen on the table is the only one of the kind 
I have ever met with. 
The Otopteris, which is somewhat related to the ferns, probably grew near the 
sea-coast in the same manner as do the maritime ferns of our own times, and the 
specimen may have been washed away from some rocky isle by an unusual high 
tide, or carried by a river flood into the sea, and then covered up by the sediment 
brought down by the freshet. That it was by some means deposited at the bottom 
of an ocean can hardly admit of a doubt, because in the same beds are found many 
species of marine shells, such as Ammonites, Plagiostoma, &c, and also plates 
and spines of Echinoderms. The drawings of two species of the last-named were 
exhibited to the members present. 
On a casual glance, the specimen has much the appearance of a fern, but upon 
a more careful examination, it presents characters which appear to separate it from 
that tribe of plants. I believe that in all recent ferns each leaflet has a midrib, 
or the veins are so disposed as to impart the appearance of one, and in fossil ferns 
only one genus of allied forms (Odontopteris) has the veins arranged in a some- 
what similar manner to those so plainly shown in the specimen under examination ; 
but Odontopteris has bipinnated leaves, and the leaflets adhere to the stalk by the 
whole width of their bases, while in Otopteris they are attached by about half their 
base, the anterior or auricled portion being quite free. From this it will appear 
that Otopteris seems to hold an intermediate position between ferns, and the allied 
Odontopteris, the arrangement of its veins differing from the former, and its 
general form separating it from the latter genus. 
Should my specimen prove to be a new species, a suitable name will be sug- 
