372 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. X. 



THE 

 SUCCESSIVE PALAEOZOIC FLORAS OF CANADA. 



By J. W. Dawson, LLD., F.R.S. 



Read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science at its 



Montreal meeting, August 1882. 



In eastern Canada, and more especially in the Maritime Pro- 

 vinces, we are so fortunate as to possess very complete and well 

 developed representatives of the Carboniferous and Erian or De- 

 vonian systems, and more especially of their shallow-water and 

 estuarine formations. We thus have a nearly continuous series of 

 fossil plants extending all the way from the Silurian to the Perm- 

 ian, and embracing seven sub-floras, as they may be termed, all 

 more or less distinguishable from each other. 



In a report recently prepared by request of the Director of 

 the Geological Survey of Canada, and soon to be published, I 

 have endeavored to characterize these several sub-floras so as to 

 render them useful to practical geologists ; and in the present 

 paper I propose to illustrate them in such a manner as to direct 

 the attention of members of the Geological section of the Asso- 

 ciation to the succession observed, and to the use which may be 

 made of it, whether for theoretical or practical purposes. 



I shall begin, for convenience, with the newer, and proceed to 

 the older formations. 



1. CARBONIFEROUS FLORA. 



(1.) Fermo-Carhoniferous Suh-Jlora : — 



This occurs in the upper member of the carboniferous system 

 of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, originally named by 

 the writer the Newer Coal Formation, and more recently the 

 Permo-Carboniferous ; and the Upper beds of which may not 

 improbably be contemporaneous with the Lower Permian or 

 Lower Dyas of Europe. In this formation there is a predomi- 

 nance of red sandstones and shales, and it contains no productive 

 beds of coal. Its fossil plants are for the most part of species 

 found in the Middle or Productive Coal-formation, but are less 

 numerous, and there are a few new forms akin to those of the 

 European Permian. The most characteristic species of the 



