EOCENE FERNS. 
51 
sociated with abundant remains of Goniopieris stiriaca and Osmunda lignitum, and assumed 
by Heer to belong to the latter (ojo. cit., p. 31), "as being the commonest " Fern. Nothing 
of this nature has been met with at Bournemouth in beds in which the pinnse of Osmunda 
are alone massed together ; but at La Rochette/ where Osmunda lignitmi is absent and 
Goniopteris stiriaca present, identical remains are found and described by Heer as 
portions of the latter Fern. 
PI. iv, figs. 4} a, 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 pinnse 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 pinnse 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, PL 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" {pp. 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 Hemitelia, and the pinnse 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 Avhich 
(P. lignitum) 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 
grandeur. 
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. Grutschreiberi, Stur, in list of synonyms The original specimen is in the 
Imperial Geological Institute at Vienna, 
