156 Chapman, Geological History of Australian Plants. [vo[ lct xxx'v. 



"As a result of comparison with other Mesozoic floras, I 

 have come to the conclusion that the Burrum flora is a typical 

 Lower Cretaceous flora (Neocomian-Barremian or Wealden), 

 most closely comparable with the American Kootani and 

 Patuxent floras and the German Wealden. 



" In Western Queensland there is a fresh- water series over- 

 lying the Rolling Downs, and it is regarded as the equivalent 

 of the Burrum Series. Mr. Dunstan calls the Western Series 

 the W T inton Series. Very few fossils come from the latter. 



" 3. — The Styx River fossil flora has not yet been examined. 

 Plants are not very abundant, but the flora is certainly as 

 recent as the Burrum flora, and I am inclined to think that it 

 may be later, perhaps Upper Cretaceous." 



In a later note Dr. Walkom informs me that he finds the 

 Styx Series younger than the Burrum flora, and probably of 

 Lower Cretaceous age. It contains a remarkably interesting 

 assemblage of plant fossils, as there occur, besides Cladofthlebis , 

 Tcenioftteris, Araacarites, and Podozamites, leaves of angio- 

 sperms (flowering plants) which have not before been recorded 

 from the Mesozoic of Australia. This flora also shows a strong 

 resemblance to the flora of the W T aikato Heads, in New Zealand. 



A rather extensive dicotyledonous flora has been determined 

 from flaggy quartzites of the Lakes Eyre, Torrens, and Frome 

 districts, South Central Australia. These, together with others 

 from Queensland described by Ettingshausen, have been 

 referred by Prof. Tate * to the Desert Sandstone Series (Upper 

 Cretaceous), but the components of this flora are so distinctly 

 Miocene in character that not by the greatest effort of the 

 imagination could they be accepted as Upper Cretaceous. 



The foregoing rapid survey of the flora of the Australian 

 Mesozoic has been attempted in the hope of revealing the 

 wonderfully interesting character of the plant life of that period. 

 Much remains to be done in systematizing our knowledge of 

 these relics of ancient forest and gully, especially in relation 

 to their distribution in time. When this has been more 

 thoroughly accomplished there is no doubt much will have 

 been learned of the position and occurrence of other coal- 

 bearing deposits in Australia, which up to the present lie hidden 

 and unsuspected beneath the earth's surface. 



In the concluding paper of the series, on the Tertiary Flora, 

 it is proposed to figure some of the more typical and interesting 

 forms. 



* See Horn Exped., part 3, 1896, pp. 66-68. Also Etheridge, R., jun., 

 Mon. Cret. Invert. Fauna, Mem. Geol. Surv. N. S. Wales, Pal., No. n, 

 1902, pp. 51-56. It is there noted (p. 51, footnote) that " considerable 

 uncertainty exists as to the exact stratigraphical position of these plant 

 beds." These beds were referred to by the writer under " Miocene leaf- 

 beds" in " Australasian Fossils," 1914, p. 91. 



