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259
The specimen which is shown in natural size in pl. I, fig. 1,
consists of an impression of a stem-like fragment measuring about
50 mm. in length, a little more than 1 mm. in breadth at the
broken base and only slightly less at the top which is also broken.
A little more than 1 cm. from the base there is a branch, a little
more than 20 mm. long. The branch has about the same thick-
ness as the mother axis, and the branching is no doubt dichoto-
mous though one of the two branches resulting from the bifurca-
tion continues in the same direction as the axis below the point
of branching.
The whole specimen is covered with fairly densely placed, linear
lateral appendages, about 1—1,5 mm. long. These appendages
which are slightly recurved are distinctly seen only at the sides of
the axis where they appear as slight impressions contrasting through
their dark or brown colour with the light grey of the rock. There
are, however, indications of the appendages also on the impression
of the surface of the axis (figs. 2 and 3), and there is hardly any
doubt that they were placed radially, all round the stem, perhaps
in a spiral, though no details of their arrangement can be made
out. Usually the appendages are broken, but sometimes the apex
is preserved, as in fig. 4, where it is seen to be somewhat acute.
In one or two cases the appendages show a darker longitudinal
line which may correspond to a vein, though this is far from
certain. This feature does not appear well in fig. 4. In addition
to the appendages now described there is seen, at the margin of
the impression of the stem, a kind of very minute hairs, only
visible in higher magnification (fig. 5).
The fact that the specimen was found in a bed containing for
the rest only marine fossils, raises the suspicion that it may not
be a plant, as its habit suggests, or at least not a land-plant. Dr.
HEDE and other palaeozoologists, who have examined the specimen
are, however, of the opinion that it cannot belong to any known
group of the animal kingdom. The habit is no doubt that of a
plant and suggests a dichotomously branched axis bearing spines
or rudimentary leaves. The specimen may be an alga, but the
axis seems to have been rather firm and hard, to judge from the
impression, and the whole habit is rather that of a primitive land-
plant such as we now know from the Lower Devonian. It is
chiefly this resemblance to the vascular plants of the Lower Devo-
nian that gives us some reason to regard the specimen as a pro-
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