(Communicated by permission of the Director-General of the Geological Survey).
1. Introduction.—Before proceeding to describe the plants from the localities in question, and their geological horizon, we append a brief historical outline of the vegetable remains of the Scotch Old Red Sandstone. The gradually accumulating evidence of a terrestrial flora in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland since the first discovery of plants in that formation by the Bev. Dr. Fleming and Hugh Miller, and the reference of many of them to land rather than aquatic forms, by Charles William Peach, leads all observers interested in the subject to hope that ere long botanists may be in possession of sufficient material to enable them to illustrate the flora of that remote period in a more satisfactory manner than can be done at present, and to restore, in some degree at least, the bygone vegetable organisms which then existed. As a slight contribution to this end, we have now the pleasure of announcing the discovery by one of us (R. L. J.) of land plants in the Old-Red-Sandstone series of the neighbourhood of Callander, during the progress of the Geological Survey of that district under the direction of Prof. Geikie, F.R.S.
2. Bibliography.—One of the earliest notices which has come under our observation is a short paper, in 1811, by the Rev. Mr. Fleming, entitled, 'A Mineralogical Account of Papa Stour, one of the Zetland Islands'[1], wherein it is stated that in Bressay, near Lerwick, "the sandstone includes beds of slate-clay, and contains vegetable impressions similar to those common in the sandstone of the coal-fields of the Lothians."
In 1831 the same author describes, in a paper "On the Occurrence of the Scales of Vertebrated Animals in the Old Red Sandstone of Fifeshire"[2], with the scales obtained at Parkhill, near Newburgh, and Arbroath, circular flat patches, composed of numerous smaller, contiguous, circular pieces, as probably the conglobate panicles of extinct species of Juncus or Sparganium. It is probable that these are the Crustacean remains now known as Parka decipiens, Flem.
In 1841 Mr. Hugh Miller published his 'Old Red Sandstone,' in which he described the vegetable remains of that series in the north of Scotland as obscure, consisting mostly of carbonaceous markings such as might be formed "by comminuted seaweed." He further noticed the bifurcating nature of some of his specimens, and that one exhibited scars resembling those of Stigmaria, whilst the branches of
