by j. shirley, b.sc. 41 



Devonian Period. 



The oldest Queensland plant fossil appears in Devonian rocks 

 at the Fanning River, Burdekin Downs, in shales and sand- 

 stones. Strange to say it is not a member of any lowly group of 

 plants, but belongs to the family of pines and firs. 

 Dicranophyllum, the plant in question, is an ally of the Chinese 

 gingko, that mysterious tree, which though found in a fossil 

 state is still cultivated around temples in Japan and Northern 

 China. The remains consist of portions of branches, with 

 spirally arranged leaves, and short internodes, and with their 

 surfaces marked out into rhombic meshes, closely crowded 

 together. 



It is not to be conceived that this plant came into existence 

 without ancestors or contemporaries. It belongs to a fairly high 

 type of plant life, and its solitary position in the Devonian rocks 

 of Queensland may at any moment be altered by fresh 

 discoveries. 



Permo-Carboniferous Period. 



With the next geological epoch— the Permo-Carboniferous 

 period — represented by the whole series of beds belonging to the 

 coal measures, we come upon a great wealth of plant material, 

 in strong contrast to strata beneath them. In the Gympie, 

 Star, and Uowen beds are found the remains of plants — 

 enormous in their growth, but lowly in type, and in our days 

 represented merely by small and delicate plants, pendant from 

 our trees, or growing sparsely in marshes or on sandy soils. 

 These plants of the coal measures, known as Calamites, 

 Lepidodendrons, Sigillarias, Stigmarias, Sec, are nearly allied to 

 the lowly yet beautiful lycopods, selaginellas, mat-estails, and 

 nardoo. In our Permo-Carboniferous rocks there are also found 

 many ferns, the most common forms having large ovate pinnae ; 

 some few cycads, relations of our Zamias ; and trunks of fossil 

 conifers. 



In other parts of the world Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, and 

 their allies first appear ia the Devonian formations ; and, 

 although they have not been found in Queensland rocks of that 

 age, we know from the testimony of the rocks elsewhere that 

 they were contemporaries and predecessors of our single 

 Devonian fossil already referred to. 



It has been advanced as a reason for the enormous develop- 

 ment of the lowly, possibly succulent, plants of the coal- 

 measures, that the climate then was much hotter and moister 



