24 
has been recently fully confirmed by a communication made 
to the Geological Society of London, by Mr. Brown, of 
the discovery of upright stems of Lepidodendron with 
Stigmaria roots, in the roof of the Sydney main coal, in 
the Island of Cape Breton, North America.* 
There are two characters in these Stigmaria roots which 
deserve notice, in which they differ from the root, I believe, 
of every known plant : — First, you never find any small 
Stigmarige, indicating that this root branched out into 
very small subdivisions or fibrillar, as is invariably the case 
in all other roots; secondly, that the lateral appendages, 
which were formerly supposed to be leaves, have each 
been attached to a small tubercle, and these generally 
arranged in regular quincuncial order, which is without a 
parallel, as far as we know, in the present flora of the 
globe, roots never proceeding from the main caudex with 
anything like symmetry, but being chiefly modified by the 
resisting nature of the medium in which they grow. If a 
further confirmation were wanted, that Stigmaria? are not 
the roots of Sigillariae only, it is supplied by the fact of 
their being found of universal occurrence in every coal field 
throughout the world ; whereas, even in this neighbourhood, 
Sigillariae are not found in every locality, but, perhaps, 
replaced, in some instances, by Lepidodendron, Ulodendron, 
or Favularia. 
Of Dicotyledonous wood, from some large trees, this 
Society possesses two or three distinct examples, the precise 
identity of which, however, I have never determined. One 
specimen, about five feet in length, much compressed, bears 
a great resemblance to the Pinites Brandlingi. The locality 
from whence received is unfortunately lost. A considerable 
quantity of wood was found in cutting through the sandstone 
for the tunnel at Darfield, on the line of the North Midland 
* Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, No. xiii., p. 46. 
