FLORAS OF THE PAST. 461 



North Germany as Pecopteris Althausii, and afterwards re- 

 named by Schenk l Matonidium Gopperti, is closely allied to 

 the living Malayan genus Matonia. Specimens of Matoni- 

 dium Gopperti have been found in Wealden strata in 

 Germany, Portugal, England and elsewhere ; in the flabel- 

 late habit of the frond, and in the form of the sori, these 

 fossils exhibit a striking likeness to Matonia pectinata 

 Brown. The two living species of Matonia, M. pectinata, 

 first figured by Wallich, and diagnosed by Robert Brown 

 in 1830, 2 and M. sarmentosa? described by Baker in 1888, 

 are confined to Borneo and the Malay Peninsula ; the 

 genus has long been recognised as a type apart among 

 present-day ferns, and some authors have placed it in a 

 tribe by itself — the Matonineae. Among Mesozoic ferns we 

 have the Wealden species Matonidwm Gopperti (Ett.), M. 

 Wiesneri Krasser, recently described 4 from a somewhat 

 higher horizon, and other species of the same genus ; with 

 Laccopteris, a Rhaetic genus, and Microdictyon Dmikeri, 

 another Wealden fern, which most probably belong to the 

 same tribe as the recent Matonia. 



An exceedingly interesting fern has recently been found 

 by Dr. Bommer, of Brussels, in some sands of Wealden age 

 near Bracquegnies ; the plants from this locality have not yet 

 been described, and I am indebted to Dr. Bommer for 

 showing me the rich material on which he is preparing a 

 memoir. The plant fragments were found in a loose sandy 

 matrix ; they occur as dark-brown twigs or leaves, and 

 suggest the dried and discoloured pieces of recent plants 

 which have been covered up for some years in a bed of 

 sand. The stems and leaf-stalks are not crushed, and 

 occasionally pieces of pinnae with thin black pinnules still 

 intact may be picked out of the Wealden sands. Among 

 the ferns, the most interesting specimens are those of a 

 Gleichenia ; the habit of the fronds, the form of the pinnae 

 and pinnules, and the shape of the vascular strands, demon- 

 strate beyond a doubt the generic affinities of the fossil. 



1 Schenk (1) p. 219, pis. xxvii., xxviii. and xxx. ; (2) p. 160, pi. xxvii. 



2 Wallich. 3 Baker [vide also Linn. Journ., vol. xxiv., p. 256). 

 4 Krasser, p. 119, pis. xi., xii. and xvii. 



