II. On Caulopteris Punctata, Goepp., a Tree-Fern from the Upper Greensand of Shaftesbury in Dorsetshire

Abstract

The Upper Greensand is a marine formation. Dr.Fitton, in his elaborate Memoir on ‘The Strata below the Chalk‘ (Geol.Trans., Second Series, Vol. IV.), has enumerated 60 species of Mollusca, 2 Annelids, 3Echinoderms, and 2 Protozoons from the beds in the South of England belonging to this period. These numbers have been more than doubled since the publication of that paper. They still retain the same proportions; but the fossils which Dr. Fitton characterised as ‘ fish remains ’ have been referred to 9 genera, and there have been added 4 genera of Saurians. As might be expected, very few vegetable remains have been observed. Dr. Fitton records the occurrence of some impressions of leaves. The remains of what appear to be sea-weeds are occasionally met with. Specimens of fossil wood have also been found. William Cunnington, Esq. F.G.S., of Devizes, who has kindly, through the Editor, furnished me with some particulars regarding the Upper Greensand deposits near Shaftesbury, informs me that for forty years he has been collecting the fossils of these beds, and that during that time he has obtained about thirty specimens of woods, many of them certainly drift woods, as they had been attacked by lithophagous molluscs. I have examined all the specimens of these woods contained in the collections of the British Museum, and I find that they are all Coniferous. Little more than this can be said. The woody fibres contain a single row of discs, and I have not detected any spiral fibres associated with them.