112 ON THE FOSSIL FLORA OF THE COAL DEPOSITS OF AUSTRALIA, 



Professor M'Coy describes this species as a Pecopteris in the 

 Decades of the Paleontology of Victoria, (pi. xiv., fig 3, p. 17). 

 stating that it is the same species as P. Scarburgensis, Bean 

 MSS., which Mr. Leckenberg considers intermediate between 

 P. insignis and P. ligata of the same Yorkshire Oolite beds. The 

 only difference appears to be in the slight apical serration of the 

 pinnules in the European species. Professor M'Coy also remarks 

 that the veins usually fork only once, which is the case with the 

 European and Australian species, while a secondary marginal 

 branching is rare, though in the figure given by Morris from the 

 Jerusalem (Tasmn.) coal it appears to be common. This however 

 is sometimes the case in the English Oolitic plants. Professor 

 M 'Coy's species came from Bellerine near Geelong, Morris's speci- 

 mens came from the Jerusalem basin in Tasmania. Very common 

 in all the Ipswich, Q. ~L.> coal basin, Darling Downs, Clarence 

 River, New South Wales. The Queensland specimens have at 

 times an obtusely serrated margin, and there are also varieties very 

 close to our common Pteris aquilina of world wide distribution. 

 In form and venation the fossil and living species are certainly 

 closely allied, but Professor Heer * and Professor Schimper f 

 have shown by the discovery of the fructification, that the sori 

 were obliquely placed along the veins and not marginal as in Pteris. 

 A.vihitbyensis Goepp., is therefore referred to by Heer, as Asplenium 

 whitbyense. It is so Dearly allied to our fossil that the two can 

 hardly be considered even as varieties. If we regard them as one, 

 it is one of the most wide-spread fossils known. In addition to the 

 large area over which it can be traced in Australia, it has been 

 found in Yorkshire, Switzerland, S. Prussia, Persia, Siberia, the 

 Amur countries, and Japan. It is distinctly a Lower Jurassic species. 



AUthopteris concinna, n.s. PI. 9, fig. 1. — Frond bi-pinnate, 

 with rather long rounded and obtuse leaflets ; costa faint, veins 

 numerous and close, emerging at an acute angle, forking once, the 

 venules very close and parallel, reaching the margin. 



* Flora fossilis artica vol. iv. 



t Handbuch der Paleontologie, Zittel and Schimper (1879), vol. 2, p. 97. 



