Fossils in the Oxford University Museum, V: On the Structure and Affinities of the Rhætic Plant Naiadita
1901; Geological Society of London; Volume: 57; Issue: 1-4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1144/gsl.jgs.1901.057.01-04.25
ISSN2058-105X
Autores Tópico(s)Botany, Ecology, and Taxonomy Studies
ResumoThe Rhætic plant-remains known as Naiadita are found in a narrow area stretching down that part of the Severn Valley which lies below the Avon. Phillips mentions their occurrence at Pylle Hill, Bristol, and associated with Estheria at Garden Cliff, Westbury-on-Severn, and Wainlode Cliff, Tewkesbury. The exact horizon of these plant-beds is that which Edward Wilson named Bed K. The vertical thickness of rock, through which the plants are distributed in layers of extreme tenuity, is 7 inches at Tewkesbury and 9 inches at Westbury-on-Severn. These fossils are well-known, from the description published fifty-one years ago by James Buckman; but the first discoverer was P. B. Brodie, who chose for them the name Naiadita because Lindley considered them to be monocotyledonous plants resembling the members of the order Naiadaceæ. Mr. J. Starkie Gardner re-examined them, and pointed out that the markings supposed by Lindley to have been left by the rectangular venation of a Naias -like leaf, were in reality fossilized cell-walls. Mr. Gardner concluded that the plant was a moss and was probably closely allied to the genus Fontinalis . He spoke of a capsule, but of this he gave no description. A slab from the Naiadita -bed of Pylle Hill, Bristol, was recently sent by Mr. W. H. Wickes of that city to my father for examination, because it contains bodies which were thought to be possibly gemmules of a sponge. On this proving not to be the case, the specimen was handed over to me. I have since had the
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