1078 NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN FOSSILS, 



(III.) NOTE ON TWO NEW FOSSIL PLANTS FROM THE 

 WIANAMATTA SHALES. (1) 



JEANPAULIA (?) PALMATA Sp. nOV. 



(Plate XVII.) 



I do not think I shall exaggerate, when I say that the specimen 

 in the Australian Museum, which is here represented, is the most 

 beautiful specimen of the most singular genus of fossil plants ever 

 found in Australia. 



A single frond is nearly 10 inches broad and nearly one foot from 

 the top to the lower end of the stem, which seems as if it were still 

 attached to the soil by its root. The general outline is that of a 

 palmate leaf, and the number of divisions is not less than 58, 

 reckoning the principal, secondary, and minor sub- divisions. 



But before proceeding any further I must guard against 

 hastily referring this plant to any known genus. At first 

 I thought I could identify it with J. bidens, T. Woods (2) from the 

 Burnett River coal seams, but similar plants have been several 

 times shifted into widely different orders before evidence could be 

 produced of their organs of fructification. Count de Saporta (3) 

 has included Jeanpaulia and Baiera together as ferns, but this last 

 genus is now considered to be coniferous. 



Our specimen has a well proportioned stem, vertical, slightly 

 curved at the base, gradually expanding at the top and giving rise 

 to a palmate frond formed of divisions radiating from a centre to 

 the periphery of a half circle. 



The lateral sub-divisions or rays are from 4 1 - to 5 J inches long, 

 and gradually increase in length to the apex, where the longest 

 is 7 inches from the centre. 



The frond is divided into about twelve principal rays at from five 

 to twenty millimetres from the origin. One of these divisions seems 

 to begin far higher (apparently the tenth from the left), but it might 



(1) Mr. Wilkinson has suggested to me that these might belong to the 

 Hawkesbury Sandstone. 



(2) On the Fossil Flora of the Coal Deposits of Australia, Linn. Soc. 

 N.S.W. Vol. VIII. Part 1, p. 132, pi. 4, fig. 3. 



(3) Paleont. franc. Terr, juras. Veg. Tome I. p. 161. 



