99 
Ordinary Meeting, March 10th, 1874. 
E. W. Binney, F.R.S., F.G.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The Chaikman said that at a meeting of the Society on 
the 9th day of January, 1872, in presenting to the notice of 
the members specimens of fossil woods from the lower 
coal measures of Lancashire, he stated ^'that from some ex- 
amples in his cabinet he was led to believe that Cotta’s 
Medullosa elegans was merely the rachis of a fern or a 
plant allied to one.” Now, Professor Renault, of Paris, to 
whom we owe so much for his researches in fossil botany, 
has lately read a memoir before the French Academy on 
the 26th January last, which has since been printed in the 
Comptes Rendu s, that completely confirms this opinion. 
The genus Medullosa was first given by Professor Cotta 
to some specimens of fossil plants found at Chemnitz. M. 
Brongniart changed the genus into Myeloxylon, and M. 
Renault has now altered it into Myelopteris and made two 
species, M. radiata and 31. Landriotti. 
The fossil is found in great abundance in the calcareous 
nodules of the Upper Brooksbottom coal in Lancashire, and 
varies in size from one tenth of an inch to an inch in dia- 
meter. In this district no leaves of ferns have been found 
attached to it, but in the strata adjoining the seam of coal 
where the nodules occur specimens of Neuropteris, with 
other ferns, have been met with. Professor Renault states 
that M. Grand’ Eury refers the petioles of Myelopteris to 
Neuropterides, which comprehend the Neuropteris, the 
Odontopteris, &c. Side by side in the same nodules the 
most common plant found with Myelopteris is Galamoden- 
dron commune and the small cone which from similarity or 
structure has been supposed by me to be the fructification of 
that plant. 
Peoceedings. — Lit. &Phil. Society. — Yol. XIII. — Xo. 10~Sessioi^ 1873-4. 
