BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS, F.G.S., F.L.S. 105 



rachis, and forking frequently, and some also forking coming 

 direct from the rachis. 



In this diagnosis Dr. O. Feistmantel has included all the different 

 variations to which the species is subject. He has paid much 

 attention to it, and it is best perhaps to give an abridgement of 

 his own remarks as they stand in the descriptions of the Damucla 

 and Panchet divisions of the Gondwana systems (India*), and as 

 they are summarized in the paper read before the Itoyal Society 

 of New South Wales in 1880. After stating that he believes he 

 can identify this peculiar fossil amongst the Lower Gondwana 

 plants he remarks that this species has undergone numerous trans- 

 migrations from one genus into another, its proper place not being 

 finally settled yet. Professor Morris did not like to decide on its 

 systematic position, but from the dichotomy of the leaf Professor 

 M'Coy placed it provisionally with Grleichenites, and so on with 

 other authors whose opinions will be quoted presently. When 

 Professor Geinitz sent me in 1876 his paper on the Rhsetic plants 

 of the Argentine Republic (Cassel 1876), I was at once struck 

 with the similarity of his Thinnfeldia crassinervis with Pecoj)teris 

 odontopteroides, and quite recently I find the same view expressed 

 by Herr Nathorst, f who even thinks that both these plants are 

 identical, after having seen the specimens from Queensland whicli 

 are described by Mr. Carruthers. I have myself had an opportunity 

 of examining several specimens from various localities in Australia, 

 and although sometimes differing in appearance, yet from all the 

 other characters they have, I think that they are to be considered 

 identical. Considering the differences they present from Odontop- 

 teris, Ctenojrteris, and Pachypteris, it appeared to me best to place 

 this fossil with Thinnfeldia. 



The differences to which Dr. Feistmantel refers are those between 

 the very large fronds from Mount Victoria and the short, neat, 

 and fern-like forms in the coalbeds of Ipswich. The species, how- 

 ever, abounds in the Tivoli mine, and every intermediate form can be 



* Mem. Geol. Survey India. Fossil flora of the Gondwana System, vol. 3, 

 part 2, p. 86. 



t Of vers Kongl. Vet. Akad., Stockholm, Forhandl, 1880, No. 5 (see also 

 Nuren in Botan, Centralblatt, No. 2, p. 328, 1881. 



