of the Rocks associated with the Coal of Australia. 151 



this species (vars. a. and ft. of Brongniart) in nearly equal abun- 

 dance among the specimens examined, and some of the fronds 

 are of a size far exceeding any hitherto published, some of them 

 being six inches wide, which in the proportion of the small, per- 

 fect examples would indicate a frond of more than two feet in 

 length. I believe I have ascertained the rhizoma of this species, 

 which is furnished with ovate, clasping (or at least very convex) 

 subcarinate scales, having a divaricating reticulated neuration, 

 resembling that of the perfect frond, but much less strongly 

 marked ; these scales are of large size, some of them being nearly 

 an inch in length, and terminating at the apex in a long flat 

 linear appendage, about one line in width, which occasionally 

 gives off small, lateral, flat, membranous branches nearly at right 

 angles ; the whole perfectly resembling (except in size) the rhi- 

 zomal scales of Acrostichium, Laromanes and Hymenodium, as 

 figured by M. A. Fee in his beautiful ' Memoire sur la Fam. des 

 Fougeres/ and when combined with the great similarity in form, 

 habit and neuration, would warrant us in presuming a strong 

 affinity to exist between these genera. 



Abundant in the soft reddish shales of Jerry's Plains, and also 

 in the black shales and white clay beds of Mulubimba, N. S. W. 



Glossopteris linearis (M f Coy). PL IX. figs. 5 & 5 a. 



Sp. Char. Leaves very long, narrow, with nearly parallel sides ; 

 midrib very large ; secondary veins fine, forming an angle of 

 about 50° with the midrib, anastomosing occasionally from the 

 midrib to the margin. 



It is only with the Glossopteris angustifolia (Br.) from the 

 Indian coal-fields of Rana-Gunge, near Rajemahl, that this long, 

 parallel-sided frond could be confounded, and it is distinguished 

 easily from that species by the fineness of the neuration, which 

 is as remarkably delicate as that of the other is coarse; the neu- 

 ration of the G. angustifolia is also distinguished by its great 

 obliquity, forming an angle of about 30° with the midrib, while 

 the nerving of the present species is not more oblique than that 

 of the G. Browniana or G. Nilsoniana. In this species also, from 

 the anastomosing being continued up to the margin, it results 

 that the nerves are little closer at the margin than at the middle 

 of the leaf, while in the G. angustifolia the anastomosing is con- 

 fined to the central portion, and the dichotomising goes on to 

 the margin, where in consequence the neuration is finer and 

 closer than towards the midrib. None of the specimens are per- 

 fect at the extremities, the largest being three inches long and 

 seven lines wide at the basal fracture, and diminishing about two 

 lines in that length towards the distal end, being about eight lines 



