Mesozoic Coal Strata.-\ PALEONTOLOGY OF VICTORIA. [Plants. 



Plate VIII. 



Note. — The Gymnospermous plants represented on this plate 

 present some special points of interest in connection with the well- 

 known popular impression amongst geologists that the recent Fauna 

 and Flora of Australia have a far closer relation to the Fauna and 

 Flora of the Oolitic period than is to be found between the fossils 

 of that epoch and the living denizens of any other part of the earth, 

 and also in a botanical point of view as tencUng to diminish still 

 farther the assumed differences between the two sections of Gymno- 

 sperma, the CycadecB and the Pines. The difficulty for the palaeon- 

 tologist who has not the more perishable parts of the fructification 

 to guide him, and can only deal with the foliage and the cones, is 

 now greater than ever. I quite agree with Mr. Carruthers in his 

 reference of many of the species of so-called Zamites found in the 

 Oolitic and more recent formations to the Pinites; and a special 

 difficulty which has not hitherto occurred is presented by the 

 plants on the present plate. Until recently the simple pinnation of 

 the foHage of the Cycadeovis plants, such as Zaniia, was wathout 

 exception ; but the discovery in Queensland of the bipiunate Zatnice., 

 constituting the genus Bowenia (named after Sir G. Bowen, the 

 present Governor of Victoria), gives us a compound foliage other- 

 wise unknown amongst the Q/carfe®, but which I think it possible 

 may ultimately be found in the Zamites Barklyi here figured, in 

 which I suspect the two parallel portions on the piece of stone 

 represented in our plate are really lateral divisions of a great 

 bipinnate growth. If this fossil should ultimately prove to be 

 bipinnate, and truly distichous, I would propose the subgeneric 

 name Bowenites for such compound fossil Cycadece as in this respect 

 resemble the recent Bowenia^ the only known species of which, like 

 our fossils, has the leaflets also narrowed at the base, appi'oaching 

 in shape, ridging, and striation, &c., to our Z. ellipticus. On the 

 other hand, I have lately found in these same Bellarine rocks a 



[ 31 ] 



