12 Annals of the South African Museum. 



examples it might well be impossible to arrive at a generic much 

 less specific determination. 



So far as vegetative characters are concerned, the fern described 

 by Yokoyama from Japan as Pecopteris hroimiiana ■•' appears to be 

 identical with the South African plant ; a frond of very similar if not 

 identical form is figured by the same author from a somewhat lower 

 horizon as Pecopteris exilis Phill.,f an Inferior Oolite species since 

 placed in the genus Klukia.\ Nathorst has also figured portions of 

 fronds from Japan which he regards as probably identical with his 

 species Pecopteris geyleriana. It is, however, not improbable that 

 the specimens represented in his pi. iv., figs. 2, 6, are specifically 

 distinct from the type-specimen of P. geyleriana ;^ be that as it 

 may, I am unable to distinguish the two examples shown in 

 Nathorst's figs. 2 and 5 from the Uitenhage fern. In addition to 

 the records of ferns believed to be identical with Cladophlchis 

 hroimiiana mentioned in the above synonomy, there are others 

 which may be referred to as presenting a close resemblance possibly 

 amounting in some cases to specific identity. 



Reference has already been made to Oldham's Indian species 

 Pecopteris lohata, as a fern with the same form of frond as that of 

 Cladoplilebis broioniana ; the specimen figured by Feistmantel as 

 Dichsonia {Sphenopteris) hindrahunensis \\ may perhaps represent 

 the fertile form of Pecopteris lohata. Dichsonia coriacea, a Chinese 

 species recorded by Schenk affords another example of the C. 

 Broioniana form of frond. 1' Some of the fragments figured by 

 Saporta '•''•' from Neo-Jurassic rocks of Portugal maybe identical with 

 the African plant, and a comparison may also be made with 

 Aspidium lieterophyllum and Cladophlehis distansW described by 

 Fontaine from the Potomac beds. Asptidium montanense figured by 

 the same author :[ l from the Great Falls of Montana represents 

 another very similar species. 



Another fern of precisely similar habit to Cladophlchis hroimiiana 

 and hardly distinguishable from it is a species recently placed in 

 the genus Coniopteris, on the evidence of fertile specimens, but 

 originally described as Ncuropteris arguta L. and H.§§ This Inferior 



* Yokoyama (94), p. 218, pi. xxiv., figs. 2, 3; pi. xxvii., figs. 1—5. 



t Ibid. (89), pi. i., figs. 8-10. + Eaciborski (91). 



5? Nathorst (90). || Feistmantel (77), pi. xxxvii., fig. 2. 



•i Schenk (83), pi. lii., figs. 5, 6. 



** Saporta (94), pi. vi., fig. 1 ; pi. vii., fig. .5 ; pi. xi., xii. 

 tt Fontaine (89), pi. xiii., figs. 4, .5 ; pi. xv., figs. 1-5. 

 \\ Ibid. (92), pi. ixxxii., Ixxxiii., and ixxxiv. 

 §§ Seward (GO-), p. 115, pl. xvi., xvii. ; Lindley and Hutton (34), pi. cv. 



