. The testimony of the rocks; . king outfrom what are comparatively thescarce less abrupt terminations oftheir creeping stems and at least certain stages of growththe sub-aerial stems of Lepidodendronalso terminated abruptly (see Fig. 24); and the only termi-nal point of Ulodendron I ever saw was nearly as obtuse asthat of Stigmaria. I have been long desirous of acquainting myself with thetrue character of this latter plant (Ulodendron), buthitherto my labors have not been very successful. A speci-men of Ulodeyidron mi7ius, however, now on the table,which I disinterred several year
. The testimony of the rocks; . king outfrom what are comparatively thescarce less abrupt terminations oftheir creeping stems and at least certain stages of growththe sub-aerial stems of Lepidodendronalso terminated abruptly (see Fig. 24); and the only termi-nal point of Ulodendron I ever saw was nearly as obtuse asthat of Stigmaria. I have been long desirous of acquainting myself with thetrue character of this latter plant (Ulodendron), buthitherto my labors have not been very successful. A speci-men of Ulodeyidron mi7ius, however, now on the table,which I disinterred several years ago from out a bed offerruginous shale in the Water of Leith, a little abovethe village of Colinton, exhibits several i^eculiarities which,so far as I know, have not yet been described. Thoughrather less than ten inches in length by about three inchesin breadth, it exhibits no fewer than seven of those round,beautifully sculptured scars, ranged rectilinearly along thetrunk, by which this ancient genus is so remarkably charac-. STIGMARIA. FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND. 467 terized. It is covered with small, sharply relieved, obovatescales, most of them furnished with an apparent midrib,and with their edges slightly turned up; from whichpeculiarities, and their great beauty, they seem suited toremind the architect of that style of sculpture adopted byPalladio from his master Yitruvius, when, in ornamentingthe Corinthian and composite torus, he fretted it intoclosely imbricated obovate leaves. Tliese scales are rangedin elegant curves, not unlike those ornamental curves,— afeat of the turning-lathe,— which one sees roughening thebacks of ladies watches of French manufacture. My fossilexhibited, as it lay in the rock, what I never saw in anyother specimen, — a true branch sticking out at an acuteangle from the stem, and fretted with scales of a peculiarform, which in one little corner appear also on the mainstem, but which differ so considerably from those of theobovate, appare
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