428 Solms-Lcmbach . — On the Fructification 
of the British Museum. This block is twenty centimetres in 
height, twenty-seven centimetres broad in the longer axis of 
the elliptical transverse section, and eighteen centimetres and 
a half in the short axis of the same. It is the lower portion 
of the original block ; it becomes gradually smaller below, 
and terminates in a roundish projection. Externally it is 
angular and has sharp edges ; on the fresh surface of the frac- 
ture its colour is a dark chocolate brown, everywhere else it is 
covered with a yellowish brown ochreous crust. It shows no 
sign whatever of having been worn and smoothed by the action 
of the sea. The panoply of leaf-bases has been preserved all 
round. Two polished section-surfaces are seen in the rough 
block where portions of the margin have been cut off. The 
first of these has a tangential direction, passing transversely 
through the leaf-armour and the inclosed fructifications. The 
second shows the transverse section of the stem, and cuts 
longitudinally through the leaf-bases and fructifications. The 
petrifaction of the specimen is very perfect ; the material, as 
was said above, is tricalcium phosphate ; but there are gaps 
here and there which are usually filled with clay-stone or with 
crusts of iron oxide. Unfortunately the examination of many 
places, especially in the fructifications, is greatly obstructed by 
the presence in large quantities of opaque pyrites distributed 
throughout the entire block. 
2. Of the upper and much smaller fragment of the original 
block, which now belongs to the Museum at Kew. This is 
less perfect than the piece in the British Museum ; a portion 
of the leaf-armour has disappeared on one side ; the outer 
surface even cuts off here and there a corner of the ring of 
wood and of the pith. The surface of one fracture has been 
cut smooth to obtain a polished transverse section of the 
stem. Part of the marginal portion thus set free has al- 
ready been used to make slices; the remainder, inclosing a 
fructification, has supplied the chief material for my new 
preparations. 
3. Of a few small fragments in Carruthers’ possession, which 
came from Morris as the label on one of them shows. This 
