152 Chapman, Geological History of Australian Plants. [vIl'xxx'v. 



horizon to be coal-bearing, unless we include part of the Upper 

 Coal Measures of Tasmania. From Leigh Creek Mr. R. 

 Etheridge, jun., described Thinnfeldia odontopteroides and T. 

 (Macrotczniopteris) wianamattce , from bore cores. 



Upper Mesozoic (up to Cretaceous). 



Both in Queensland and Victoria a rich assemblage of plant 

 remains of this period have been discovered. So far as they 

 can be correlated, these floras show a close affinity with the 

 Upper Oolite plants of Yorkshire, in England, but embrace 

 several types of an older character found in widely-distributed 

 deposits of the Rhaetic, Lias, and upward. The Victorian 

 black coal deposits in the Gippsland Basin especially, as well 

 as the same beds, poor in coal, on the Wannon River and near 

 Geelong, have furnished many species of ferns and conifers. 

 Of the commonest ferns may be cited T ceniopteris , Cladophlebis , 

 Sphenopteris, and Thinnfeldia, the latter including the more 

 ancient species T. odontopteroides and one peculiar to the upper 

 beds, T. Maccoyi, having a larger and apparently thicker frond, 

 probably a moist-conditioned modification of the species 

 usually found in deposits of a more arid nature. Another 

 species, T. indica, of the Rajmahal Hills flora, occurs near 

 Jumbunna, South Gippsland. Roots of ferns found in the 

 Gippsland coal measures, known as Rhizomopteris, have been 

 referred by the writer to Tczniopteris spatulata * on account 

 of their having been discovered in close relationship and general 

 community. They resemble the creeping root-stock of a Hart's 

 Tongue Fern (Scolopendrium). Prof. Zeiller had already 

 referred to the probable habit of Tczniopteris fronds growing 

 in tufts as in the genus mentioned. T. spatulata, a widely- 

 distributed species, and occurring in the Indian Jurassic flora, 

 is here regarded as the central type, with T. Daintreei and T. 

 Carruthersi as narrow and broad varietal laminae respectively. 

 The ubiquitous Cladophlebis denticulata, which is found not 

 only in most of the Australian States, but in England, 

 Germany, Austria, Italy, Scandinavia, Siberia, Greenland, 

 North America, Persia, China, Japan, India, and New Zealand, 

 is doubtfully referred to the Polypodiacecz on account of its 

 fructification. Coniopteris hymenophylloides, another widely- 

 distributed fern of the Oolitic and Upper Jurassic generally, 

 is closely allied, according to Prof. Seward, to either Dicksonia 

 or Thyrsopteris, and is definitely a member of the Tree-ferns 

 (Cyathacece). 



Amongst the mosses (Bryophyta) we have in Victoria 

 Marchantites, a liverwort, as at Scarborough, in Yorkshire ; 



* Rec. Geol. Surv. Vict., vol. iii., part 1, 1909, p. no. 



