NOTES. 
SPORANGIA ATTRIBUTED TO BOTRY OPTERIS ANTIQUA, KID- 
STON. — Botryopteris aniiqua, the most ancient and simplest species of the genus, 
was first described by Mr. R. Kidston, F.R.S., in 1908, 1 from the well-known plant¬ 
bearing bed, of Lower Carboniferous age, at Pettycur, near Burntisland. The petioles 
and smaller branches of the rachis are common in the Pettycur material, though the 
stems are not often met with. M. F. Pelourde has recently identified the species in 
the ‘ Culm ’ of Esnost, near Autun. 2 3 4 Associated with the petioles we commonly find 
small sporangia, quite similar to those which so usually occur with the Coal-measure 
species B. hirsuta and B. ramosap but somewhat smaller. The sporangia are of 
an approximately spherical form ; the wall is one cell thick and provided with a broad 
plate of enlarged cells resembling the areola or false annulus of the Osmundaceae. 
Sporangia of this type have often been observed in petrifactions of Carboniferous age ; 
they have recently been described and figured by M. Pelourde, from the same block 
in which he found the Autun specimens of Botryopteris aniiquaP He does not 
venture to draw any conclusion as to the plant to which the sporangia belonged, 
though the probability of their connexion with the Botryopteris was evidently present 
to his mind. Neither has there been, as yet, any decisive ground, apart from analogy, 
for specially connecting the Pettycur sporangia with the associated Botryopteris. 
In examining a section, cut by Mr. W. Hemingway from a block of my Petty¬ 
cur material, I observed a group of the sporangia in question in such close association 
with a rachis of Botryopteris antiqua as to strongly suggest a connexion between them. 
The sporangia are four in number and are ranged in a quadrangular group, as shown 
in the sketch, immediately opposite a small Botryopteris rachis, the upper surface of 
which is turned towards them. The whole arrangement is exceedingly definite and 
appears unlikely to be accidental. The sporangia are well preserved; in each of 
them the characteristic multiseriate annulus is conspicuous (see Figure). They are full 
of spores, many of which have a marked triangular form, probably exaggerated by 
contraction, just as is the case in the spores of the sporangia associated with 
B. ramosaP The flat plate of cells (marked i in the Figure) lying between two of 
the sporangia suggests a kind of indusium ‘ it will be remembeied that an elaborate 
1 On a new species of Dineuroti and of Botryoptevis from Pettycur, Fife. Trans. R.o)'. Soc., 
Edinburgh, vol. xlvi, Part II, No. 16, 1908. 
2 Observations sur quelques v^gdtaux fossiles de l’Autunois. Ann. Sci. Nat., Bot., 9 s serie, 
t. xi, 1910. 
3 D. H. Scott, Studies in Fossil Botany, p. 332, Figs. 124 and 125, 2nd ed., 1908. 
4 Pelourde, 1 . c., p. 367, Figs. 6 and 7. 
8 Scott, 1 . c., Fig. 125. 
Annals of Botany, Vol. XXIV. No. CXVI. October, 1910.] 
