genus Noggerathia to Living Plants. 107 



Cycadea, especially Cycas revoluta; 3. Seeds, having the most 

 striking resemblance to those of Cycas. It is difficult to avoid 

 drawing the conclusion that these three kinds of organs belong 

 to one plant, and that this plant should be placed very near the 

 Cycadea, probably even in the same family, in which it would form 

 one of the most remarkable genera from the large size and form 

 of its leaves, — a genus which would appear to combine leaves 

 analogous to those of Zamia with a mode of fructification similar 

 to that of Cycas. I should add, that this association, which ap- 

 peared to me so striking in the mines at Bessege, from the 

 abundance of these fossils, appears to exist in several other 

 mines where these fossils are more rare. Thus in those of Treuil 

 at St. Etienne we also find large leaves of a species of Noggera- 

 thitty probably different from that of Bessege, associated with 

 fronds having pinnatifid fringed lobes, which are however not 

 recurved as those in the former locality, and having analogous 

 fruits to those above described, although sHghtly different speci- 

 fically. In Decazeville we find the same association, although 

 combined with some specific differences and smaller dimensions 

 in all the parts. I possess leaves of a peculiar species of Nog- 

 gerathia obtained by M. Boisse from Carmeaux, in the fragments 

 of which I can now recognise lobes of these abortive fronds very 

 analogous to those of St. Etienne ; finally, two kinds of seeds 

 having considerable analogy with those which I have attributed 

 to Noggerathiay although very different in their proportions. 

 Leaves of Noggerathia, although from different species, are also 

 very abundant at Blanzy, in the basin at Autun, at Brassac, 

 Commentry, Saint-Gervais, Neffiez, Saint-Georges-sur-Loire, 

 Saint-Pierre-la-Cour and Anzin. 



Most of the straight, linear or slightly cuneiform leaves, having 

 equal and parallel nerves, and called Poacites, appear to be leaflets 

 or lobes of the leaflets of Noggerathia ; however, these leaflets 

 having almost always been found only isolated, and also in very 

 imperfect fragments, we must not generalize too much on their 

 relations with Noggerathia ; probably several belong to another 

 genus of the same division of the vegetable kingdom, Flabellaria 

 of M. de Sternberg, also referred by this savant to the family of 

 Palms, and the affinities of which, both to the Conifers and to 

 the CycadecBj have been shown by M. Cor da; but here the leaves 

 are simple and symmetrical, whilst in Noggerathia the foliaceous 

 parts consist of the leaflets of a pinnate leaf, and they are gene- 

 rally oblique at the summit and not symmetrical. 



This determination of the position of Noggerathia in the vege- 

 table kingdom is not without some interest, for these plants ap- 

 pear very numerous and widely diffused in the coal-formation, 

 and the debris of their leaves appears in some places, by their 



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