30 
STIGMARIA 
Feb., 1889. 
out to nothing at both ends.”* (Plate II.. figs. 4 and 7.) 
Again, it should be remarked that a flattisli circular clav- 
ironstone specimen, about 4ins. across, was found by myself, 
in August last, on a pit-bank near Mangotsfield, in the 
Bristol coal-field. 
All this points to the conclusion that these particular forms 
of Stigmaria are exceedingly common, at any rate in certain 
areas. Believing, as I firmly do, that almost eveiy Stigmaria 
specimen we find has lived and died on the spot, though some 
may have been transported along with the vegetable matter in 
which they had root to greater or less distances; and that as 
they occur in sandstone, in coal, in cannel, and black 
carbonaceous mud (shale), and in clay (underclay), it seems 
perfectly clear that the plant, whether the tree-root or other 
type, did not find the material of which underclays were or 
are composed essential to its growth. An ample supply of 
moisture would appear to have been the one thing needful for 
its support. 
(cl) On the strength, then, of the British Museum 
“ terminal ” specimen, and on the individual plant-like 
Stigmariae of the Little Flint coal of Salop, the Eureka of 
Leicestershire, and of others found in Gloucestershire and 
Derbyshire, and also of what Lesquereux and the French 
school firmly believe to be the true reading of the fossil, I beg 
leave, in conclusion, to put the following questions, which, I 
maintain, must be fully and satisfactorily answered before it 
can be positively asserted that in Stigmaria we have a root only. 
1. —Does the organic structure of Stigmaria, so far as 
made out, preclude the possibility of its being an individual 
plant; in other words, are we compelled, on botanical grounds, 
to give an unqualified rejection to a belief in a plant sui 
generis ? 
2. —As the material of these Salopian and other fossils 
in coal is usually sandstone, it will probably be argued by 
many that they are remnants of tree roots, which, during the 
existence of the stump became filled up with sand even to 
their very extremities. Are we not equally justified in 
assigning another cause or explanation of the phenomenon— 
namely, that these things have become sandstone much in the 
same way as the large nodular masses of pyrite often found in 
coal, or as those Stigmariae which are composed of clay- 
* These occur just at the top of the “ Top-hard ” coal-seam (5ft. 
Gins, thick), and what is remarkable about them is that I am told they 
always lie with their longer axis more or less N. and S. or parallel with 
the “cleat” or master-joints of the coal, “end on” as the mining 
term is.—W. S. G. 
