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TIIK FLORA OF TIIK CAUBONIFEKOUS PERIOD. 



BY ROBERT KIDSTON, F.R.S.K., F.O.S. ^^^ VORK 80:^,, : • 



GARDEN. LIBf?ARY 

 riRST rAPER. (,;v/»n i, iOTi.i,,, 



biven Oy ARTHUR HOLLICL 



I have pleasure in complying with the request of your 

 Council to read before your Society a short account of the 

 Flora of the Carboniferous Formation, and in so doing shall, 

 as far as possible, avoid technical language, as I address myself 

 more specially to those who, though they have not previously 

 given serious study to the subject, may have a wish to know 

 more about the Fossil Plants which formed such a prominent 

 feature in Carboniferous times, and who, one would fain hope, 

 may be induced to give some attention to a branch of botany 

 than which there is none that would more repay careful 

 observation. 



There has long been undoubted evidence of the occurrence 

 of Algje and Fungi in Carboniferous times in Britain, and 

 recently I have met with a fossil in rocks of Calciferous Sand- 

 stone age so similar in appearance to Fegatella, that the Liverworts 

 must now be added to our Carboniferous plants. I shall not, 

 however, enter into a detailed description of these fossils, which 

 are of rare occurrence, but pass to those groups which occupy 

 a more prominent place and of which there is more certain 

 knowledge. A fossil which has been referred to the mosses was 

 described from the French Coal Measures by MM. Renault and 

 Zeiller, but hitherto no representative of this class has been met 

 with in Britain. 



In the present paper we shall therefore reserve our remarks 

 to the Ferns, Fquisetites, and Calamites, leaving the Lycojjods, 

 Sj)henophylls, Cordaitea', and Co7iifer(e for a future time. 



Before proceeding further, it is necessary to point out that 

 many fossil plant genera are quite provisional, for palaeobotanists 

 have seldom the data for the definition of a genus in the clear 



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