16 PnYLLOTHECA. 



but that, at present, it does not seem desirable to adopt another in 

 its place. 



This plant is known only from the Eaniganj Coalfield, Raniganj 

 Group, India. 



Not represented in the British Museum collection. 



Genus PHYLLOTHECA, Brongniart, 1828. 



[Prodr. Hist Yeget. foss., pp. 151, 175.] 



' ' Plants resembling in habit the recent Equisetums. Stems 

 simple or branched, divided into distinct nodes and internodes, 

 the latter marked by longitudinal ridges and grooves ; from the 

 nodes are given off leaf - sheaths consisting of linear - lanceolate 

 uninerved segments coherent basally, but having the form of free 

 narrow teeth for the greater part of their length. The long free 

 teeth are usually spread out in the form of a cup and not adpressed 

 to the stem, the tips of the teeth are often incurved. The 

 sporangia are borne on peltate sporangiophores attached to the 

 main stem between whorls of sterile leaves." ' 



Phyllotheca was first described by Brongniart in 1828, from 

 specimens from the Hawkesbury River, near Port Jackson, 

 Australia. The genus is best known from Australia, Asia Minor, 

 and from Siberia. 



Phyllotheca appears, like Calamites, to have possessed a hollow 

 pith-cavity, and some of the casts referred to this genus are probably 

 pith-casts. In such, the ridges and grooves of the internodes 

 are continuous and not opposite at the nodes. It is practically 

 impossible to distinguish such pith casts from those of Schizoneura. 



Branches occur in some specimens, and branch-scars are sometimes 

 found at the node. 



Mr. Seward - has recently compared the leaf-bearing branches of 

 Phyllotheca with Annularia aud Calamocladus, types of Calamitean 

 foliage, to which they present many points of resemblance, thus 

 leading to the conclusion that a close affinity exists between 

 these three genera. 



Distribution. — Permo- Carboniferous (Glossopteris flora) : — India, 

 in the Eaniganj Series only ; New South Wales, in the "Lower 



1 Seward (98 1 ), pp. 281, 282. 2 Seward (98 1 ), p. 289. 



