On Two New Specimens of Spencerites insignis. 
BY 
Miss E. M. BERRIDGE, F.L.S. 
With Plates XI and XII and three Figures in the Text. 
SPECIMEN of this fossil strobilus from the Coal-Measures of York- 
shire and Lancashire was first described by Professor Williamson as 
a Lepidostrobus^ , no specific name being given; later accounts were pub- 
lished of this and other specimens under the names of Lepidostrobus insignis 
and Lepidodendron Spenceri 1 2 . 
In 1897 this type of cone was the subject of a paper by Dr. Scott 3 , who 
showed that the distinctive characteristics of the fossil justified its removal, 
already suggested by Professor Williamson, from the genus Lepidostrobus ; 
Dr. Scott therefore gave a full description of this and an allied species under 
the names Spencerites insignis and Spencerites majusculus. Until the latter 
part of 1903 only four examples of the strobilus Spencerites insignis were 
known. In the summer of that year, however, I found two specimens 
at Dulesgate, from which some series of sections were cut by Mr. Lomax, 
among them being the fine radial section which is represented in PI. XI, 
Phot. 1. The new examples are chiefly remarkable for the good preservation 
of the sporophylls ; these prove to be more complicated than was previously 
supposed. They also vary considerably in other respects from the speci- 
mens described by Dr. Scott ; the following account deals chiefly with 
these points of difference : — 
Axis. The diameter of the axis is 5 mm., which is the maximum 
measurement given by Dr. Scott for the cones. It is evident from this and 
other measurements that the new specimens are rather large examples of 
the fossil. 
Within the ring of primary wood there is a well-marked pith, the 
prosenchymatous cells of which are mostly thin-walled, but a strand of 
thick-walled cells appears near the centre (Phot. 5. m). 
1 ‘ Organization of the Fossil Plants of the Coal-Measures,’ Part IX, Phil. Trans., 1878. 
2 ‘Organization,’ &c., Parts X, XVI, XIX, Phil. Trans., 1880, 1889, and 1893. 
3 (i) ‘ On the Structure and Affinities of Fossil Plants from the Palaeozoic Rocks’; (ii) ‘On 
Spencerites , a new Genus of Lycopodiaceous Cones.’ Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., vol, 189 B, 1897. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol, XIX. No, LXXIV. April, 1905.J 
