Fossil Floras of Cape Colony. 101 



Tlie conclusion to bo drawn from the Vereeniging plants is that 

 they belong to a flora which flourished in South Africa, India, 

 South America, and Australia during some portion of the Permo- 

 Carboniferous epoch. On the whole, it would seem probable that 

 the age of the plant-beds corresponds most nearly with the Upper 

 Carboniferous period as represented in Europe. It is of necessity 

 ■difficult to attempt to express the geological age or homotaxy of 

 South African beds in terms of the geological chronology of the 

 Northern Hemisphere, but the close correspondence of some of the 

 Vereeniging types with Indian and South American species points to 

 their correlation with the Karharbaii beds of the Lower Gondwana 

 system. The occurrence of such types as Siglllaria, Bothrodcndron, 

 and Psygmophyllum shows a closer correspondence between the 

 South African flora and that of the Northern Hemisphere than occurs 

 in the Indian vegetation ; we have evidence of an overlapping or 

 commingling of the northern and southern botanical provinces " in 

 South Africa and in South America that is not afforded by the Lower 

 ■Gondwana floras of India and Australia. 



* Zeiller (97). 



