JAN 17 1900 



A FERN FORMING A NEW GENUS — ETHERIDGE. 135 



On a fern (BLECHNOXYLON TALBRAGARENSE), with 

 SECONDARY WOOD, FORMING A NEW GENUS, from the 

 COAL MEASURES of the TALBRAGAR DISTRICT, 

 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



By R. Etheridge, .Tunr., Curator. 

 (Plates xxiv. - xxvii.) 



The very remarkable and interesting plant remains about to be 

 described were entrusted to me by Mr. J. Clunies Ross, B.Sc. 

 (Lond.), of the Technical College, Bathurst, who received them 

 from Mr. W. Pascoe, the Technological Museum Attendant at 

 Bathurst. The specimens were obtained from the Coal Measure 

 strata in the neighbourhood of the Talbragar River, somewhere 

 between Gulgong and Cockabutta* Hill in the County of Bligh. 



The Talbragar or Erskine River rises in the Liverpool Range, 

 and flowing in a general south-west direction, joins the Macquarie 

 River a little to the north of Dubbo. 



Beds of Permo-Oarboniferous age, containing Vertebraria, and 

 probably belonging to the Upper or Newcastle Coal Pleasures, 

 have been casually referred to by Messrs. David and Pittman,t 

 and it is from some portion of these that the fossils about to be 

 described possibly came. 



There are ten specimens, six showing cross or transverse sections 

 of the stem, with leaves attached, and four in profile, similarly 

 more or less provided, to say nothing of sundry detached leaves, 

 in a greater or less state of preservation. I believe these frag- 

 mentary remains to be those of a Fern, and shall in consequence 

 make use of terminology of this section of the Cryptogamia. 



In the first specimen the caudex (1 or rhizome) is seen in cross 

 section surrounded by seven radiating fronds, or portions thereof. 

 (PI. xxiv. fig. 1.) 



The second is a similar fossil, but with eight radiating fronds, 

 one protruding from below a layer of matrix at a lower level. 

 The section of the caudex is rather less apparent than in the first 

 example. 



* ? Cockaburra, i.e., the "Laughing Jackass." 



t Mem. Geol. Surv. N.S.W., Pal. Series, No. 9, 1895, p. ix. 



