456 
PALEONTOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 
Stigmarioides selago, Sp. nov 
PI. xxxi, fig. 3 and 3 b. 
An apparently cylindrical branch or root, whose essential 
axis, about half an inch thick, is tapering downwards, dicho- 
tomously forking, covered with long, narrow, linear hairs or 
scales (fig. 35 enlarged), bearing from the end of the divisions 
long, hard, quadrangular, tubular, thick, naked leaves ?, with 
a thick, medial, vascular vein, and a narrowly striated surface. 
These leaves or roots are similar in form to those of Lepidopliloios , but much 
longer. The figure exactly represents the specimen, which is finely preserved 
in the middle of a concretion. But the union of these hard, smooth, cylindri¬ 
cal leaves with a stem or root entirely covered with hairs, and from the point 
of alternate divisions, is so peculiar, that nothing among fossil or living vege¬ 
tables, that I know, can be compared to it. It is uncertain whether these hard 
leaves represent rootlets of some kind, or root-stalks or leaves, and possibly the 
specimen may be figured the wrong way. By its straight, horizontal, narrow, 
linear hairs, the part of the stem which bears them resembles the species pub¬ 
lished in vol. ii, of this Report, p. 446, pi. xli, fig. 3, under the name of Sclag- 
inites uncinnatus (1). 
In a concretion from Mazon creek. 
(1) Under tlie name of Bhizotnoptcris, Prof. Schimper has published, loc. cit., p 699, 
two species formerly referred to Selag'mitcs, one of them, S. uncinnalus. , Lesqx., III. Geol. 
Rep., p. 446, pi. xli, fig. 3, which he considers as rhizomas of ferns. These two last spe¬ 
cies of ours should be referred t- > the same genera. Pkizomopteris ( Selaginites ) Bpdmanni, 
Germ., has been found in the concretions of Mazon creek in well preserved specimens. 
7 
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