DESCRIPTIONS OF FOSSIL PLANTS. 



The Coal Measures of Ohio are rich in fossil plants in all parts of the 

 stratigraphical series, but the space alloted to this department of palaeon- 

 tology in this volume admits of the publication of descriptions of only a 

 part of the new forms which have been discovered. 



I have, therefore, limited myself to an interesting group of plants 

 found together in a thin band of bituminous shale located a little above 

 the base of the Coal Measures, near the western margin of the coal field, 

 in Perry county, about two miles east of Rushville. This layer of shale 

 is from twenty-five to thirty feet above the top of the Maxville lime- 

 stone, the Ohio equivalent of the Chester limestone, a Lower Carbonifer- 

 ous formation in Illinois. The shale containing the plants I have never 

 found except at one spot, where it is exposed in a ditch by the roadside, 

 and all the plants were found within the limits of a few yards square. 

 More extended explorations would doubtless bring to light other new 

 forms. 



There was here a little marsh in which grew many fine ferns and 

 other plants, nearly all of which are new to science. Some of these are 

 allied to types hitherto regarded as Devonian, and some others belong to 

 a type found chiefly in the Mesozoic. This fact gives no little interest 

 and significance to the locality. 



While these plants are found near the base of the Coal Measures in 

 Ohio, their stratigraphical position is more than two thousand feet above 

 the base of the series, as revealed in the geosynclinal basin of West Vir- 

 ginia, which was first filled with strata of the Coal Measures before any 

 similar formations took place upon the ancient marginal Waverly 

 plateau of Ohio. 



Genus MEGALOPTERIS, Dawson. 



This is a genus established by Principal Dawson to include a form of 

 Devonian fern discovered by Prof. Hartt, and named by him Neuropteris 

 Dawsoni. 



I have found several additional species near Rushville. They are all, 

 except one, quite closely allied to the form found by Prof. Hartt. The 

 exceptional one has something of the appearance of an Alethopteris, and 



