Feb., 1889. 
STIGMARIA. 
27 
Stigmarian Collection in the British Museum, which, I may 
perhaps be allowed to remark in parenthesis, requires con¬ 
siderable additions to make it what it should be, as worthily 
representing some of the peculiar characteristics of this 
fossil, which, in a national collection, one expects to see. 
Here, m Case No. 81, in the room devoted to fossil plants, is 
exhibited a specimen of Stigmaria (specimen No. 10,430), and 
labelled as follows : “ Stigmaria ficoides. Brog: Coal- 
measures, Coalbrookdale, Salop, a ‘Terminal.'"* This sing¬ 
ular specimen is roughly the size and shape of a large flattish 
potato, measuring about 5in. x 2in. x Him, and is composed 
of clay-ironstone. (Plate II., figs. 1 , 1a.) Upon its flattest upper 
surface, as exhibited, are fairly-well preserved and numerous 
regularlv distributed rootlet-scars where the rootlets had 
their attachment. These markings are of large size, say i of 
an inch in diameter, but they gradually die out round the 
sides and ends of the specimen, and do not seem to show 
themselves at all upon the underside. Now, as this fossil is 
admitted (presumably by the authorities of the Museum) to 
be a “terminal,” and by “terminal” is understood to 
represent the outward end of a root or branch, but as both 
ends of the specimen are practically alike, I suppose it is left 
to the beholder to call just whichever end he pleases the 
“ terminal.” If one is a terminal the other must be, and so 
both ends being terminals the object must, I take it, be 
regarded as an individual plant, and not as merely a fragment 
of a root. This specimen having come from Coalbrookdale, 
I repaired thither in search of other like or unlike fossils. 
My journey was not taken in vain, for I consider I had the 
good fortune to very soon come upon fossils presenting in 
many respects similar facies to the one in London ; fossils, 
if not distinct from tree-root remains, can scarcelv be shown 
to have once occupied such positions. 
In the lowest workable coal-seam in the neighbourhood of 
Madeley and Hawley, about four miles to the east of 
Wellington, Salop, occur innumerable specimens of Stigmaria 
( ? ficoides), not merely impressions of the exterior of the 
plant, as so very frequently observed by the writer upon the 
laminae of coal, including cannel and anthracite, but as casts 
of what have the appearance of being individual plants 
chiefly composed of sandstone, but now and then of clay- 
ironstone or largely of pyrites mixed with siliceous material. 
From personal observation as well as from minute enquiries 
* Dr. Ily. Woodward, F.R.S., tells me this fossil is not so labelled. 
—W. S. G. 
