The Coal of Australia. 
439 
sheath originating within them and closely embracing the stem, to 
which it gives the appearance of the barren shoots of an Equise - 
turn, with its whorls of slender branches on the outside of a toothed 
sheath.” Unger, in his “ Chloris Protogaea,” referring both to 
Brongniart and Lindley and Hutton, defines the plant as “Caulis 
simplex, rectus, articulatus vaginatusque. Folia verticillata 
linearia, enervia contracta v. expansa, vaginas articulorum strictas 
circumdantia.” Mr. Morris, I believe the latest writer on this 
plant, closely follows Brongniart in his observations on its structure. 
I have now stated what I believe to be all the published infor¬ 
mation regarding this very interesting form, and as it has not been 
hitherto figured, and the published accounts are contradictory 
among themselves, and none of them as I find strictly applicable 
to the plant, it may be interesting to detail some of the observa¬ 
tions 1 have been enabled to make on those specimens which have 
come under my notice. 
I find in the whitish clay beds of Mulubiiuba a profusion of 
plants having cylindrical jointed stems, the joints surrounded by 
sheaths, and the free edge of each sheath terminating in a whorl 
of long, linear leaves. Here we have all the essential characters of 
Phyllotheca, but beyond this there is no agreement with the de¬ 
scriptions of those few botanists who have seeu the plant. And 
here I may be permitted to state, that from the number of speci¬ 
mens which I have examined with great care, there remains not 
a doubt on my mind of the accuracy of Brongniart’s view of 
the relation of the whorls of leaves to the sheaths : I have traced 
them distinctly in every instance as arising from the free edge of 
the sheath, and lying either straight, inclining obliquely outwards, 
or, as is most commonly the case, completely reflexed, and their 
occurrence in this position may have deceived Messrs. Lindley and 
Hutton as to their real connexion with the sheaths; for when 
the long slender leaves are completely reflexed and pressed in a 
reversed position against the sheaths, broken specimens may easily 
have their inferior mistaken for their superior extremities; and if 
when in this position the leaves be supposed to point upwards, 
they will really have the appearance of originating as an inde- 
