Carboniferous Series.'^ PALjEONTOLOOY OF VICTORIA. lPala:uzow Coal Ptanh. 



Plate IX. 



LEPIDODENDRON (BERGERIA) AUSTRALE (McCoy). 



[Genus LEPIDODENDRON (Stebnbero). (Class Acotyledones. Sub-class Acrogense. 

 Order Lycopodiaceae). 



Gen. Char. — Large trees with dichotomous branches ; surface closely covered with alternately 

 arranged, rhombic scars, having a vascular cicatrix near the middle or upper angle. Leaves 

 linear or peltate ; fruit, a cone at the extremity of certain branches.] 



[Sub-genus. — Bergeria (Presl.). Scars nearly flat, obovate, rhombic, or quadrate, with a very 

 small oval vascular cicatrix near upper angle.] 



Description. — Stem at 2 inches in diameter having rhombic scars with straight 

 thick boundaries, about 4 lines long and 3^ lines wide, with a very small, oval, 

 rounded, vascular cicatrix rarely near the middle or more usually escentric towards 

 the upper angle, and often connected with the appearance of a vertical shallow 

 rounded sulcus; branches 1 inch in diameter, having similar scars 3 lines long and 

 2^ lines wide ; upper and lower angles of the scars usually slightly more acute 

 than the lateral ones, very rarely the lateral ones more acute. 



These most characteristic plants, the Lepidodeudi'a, occurring 

 in the utmost profusion everywhere in the Palaeozoic coal measures 

 of every part of Europe, and equally abundant in the coal measures 

 of the same geological age in America, have roots which constitute 

 the genus Stigmaria ; cone-like fruit constituting the genus Lepi- 

 dostrobus : casts of variously preserved internal parts constituting 

 the genera Knorria, Sternbergia, &c. ; and great fluted trunks in 

 some kinds constituting the genus Sigillaria ; and foliage consti- 

 tuting the genus Cyperites^ &c. ; all which various appearances of 

 different parts or conditions of these plants abound in, and form 

 the most characteristic palseontological marks of, the Palaeozoic coal 

 measures, and not one of which has ever yet been found, up to the 

 present date, in the coal strata of New South Wales or Victoria, as 

 far as my enquiries, under most favourable circumstances, have 

 gone. I have, many years ago, however, published the occurrence 

 of the genus both in the northern part of New South Wales and 

 in Victoria, but in both cases entirely unconnected with the beds 

 yielding the coal, which I have long maintained to be of the 

 Mesozoic age, from the absence of Calamites and the above- 

 named Palaeozoic coal plants, and from the presence of Tceniopteris. 



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