palaeozoic vegetation. The diagnosis may provisionally run as follows :—
Gheirostrobus, gen. nov.
Cone consisting of a cylindrical axis, bearing numerous compound sporophylls, arranged in crowded many-membered verticils.
Sporophylls of successive verticils superposed.
Each sporophyll divided, nearly to its base, into an inferior and a superior lobe; lobes palmately subdivided into long segments, of which some (probably the inferior) are sterile, and others (probably the superior) fertile, each segment consisting of an elongated stalk beainng a terminal lamina.
Laminae of sterile segments foliaceous; those of fertile segments (or sporangiophores) peltate.. Sporangia large, attached by their ends remote from the axis, to the peltate laminae of the sporangiophores. Sporangia on each sporangiophore, usually four. Spores very numerous in each sporangium. Wood of axis polyarch. C. Fettycurensis, sp. nov.
Cone, 3—4 cm. in diameter, seated on a distinct peduncle. Sporophylls, twelve in each verticil. Each sporopbyll usually sexpartite, three segments belonging to the inferior, and three to the superior, lobe. Sporangia densely crowded. Spores about 0 065 mm. in diameter. Horizon: Calciferous Sandstone Series. Locality: Pettycur, near Burntisland, Scotland. Found by Mr. James Bennie, of Edinburgh.
Both generic and specific characters are manifestly subject to alteration, if other similar fossils should be discovered. In the mean time the above diagnoses are given, in order to facilitate identification.
Affinities.
Any full discussion of affinities must be reserved for the detailed memoir, which I hope to lay before the Royal Society in a short time. At present only a few suggestions will be offered
The idea of a near relationship to Lepidostrobus—so specious at first sight—is negatived by accurate investigation. There may have been a certain resemblance in external habit, as there is in the naked-eye appearance of the sections, but this means nothing more than that the specimen is a large cone, with crowded sporophylls and radially elongated sporangia. The only real resemblance to Lepidostrobus is in the polyarch strand of primary wood, but even here the details, as, for example, the structure of the tracheae, do not
