Mesozoic. | PALZZONTOLOGY OF VICTORIA. [ Plante, 
PratEe XIV., Fias. 1-2. 
TANIOPTERIS DAINTREEI (McCoy). 
[Genus TASNIOPTERIS (Brone.). (? Class Acotyledones ; sub-class Acrogene. Order 
Filices. Fam. Daneacez.) 
Gen. Char.—Frond simple or pinnate, long, narrow, with a thick strong midrib, from which 
the veins extend nearly at right angles to the lateral edges, either once or twice forked or simple, 
(Possibly Cycads allied to Stangeria.) | 
Description.—Frond very long, linear, parallel-sided; substance thick; edges 
straight; midrib thick, very strong; veins extending at right angles from the midrib 
to the lateral margins, a few straight and simple, the greater number once forked 
at a variable distance between the midrib and lateral margin. Usual width of frond, 
4 lines; about 10 or 11 lateral veins in the space of 2 lines at the margin (both of 
ordinary specimens 4 lines wide, and one young fragment nearly 2 inches long, but 
only 13 lines wide throughout), 
- The fossil plants of this genus abound in Mesozoic rocks, and 
the only few doubtful fragments from older rocks that have ever 
been assigned to this generic type were too imperfect to admit of 
satisfactory determination. The presence of a species of this genus 
in the coal rocks of Victoria is of great importance in the determi- 
nation of the Mesozoic age of these deposits coupled with the 
absence in them of all of the characteristic abundant forms of the 
old or Paleozoic coal. 
The first specimens seen of this species I recognized in a small 
collection of vegetable fragments in the rocks associated with the 
coal seams at Cape Patterson forwarded to me by Mr. Daintree, 
then of the Geological Survey, to whom I dedicated it. I subse- 
quently identified it in abundance at the sinkings for coal at the 
Barrabool Hills. As at the former locality I found in the rock with 
it fragments of the equally Mesozoic Phyllotheca of the N. 8. Wales 
coal beds, and in the rocks at the latter place found it with the 
Pecopteris Australis (Mor.) of the Tasmanian coal basin, which 
itself has been noticed in one of the Tasmanian specimens in the 
Survey collection in the same mass of stone with the Glossopteris 
Browniana so common in the N. 8. Wales coal seams, we are 
enabled by its means to connect the paleontological characters 
of the three principal Australian coal regions, and increase for each 
the evidence of their being more recent than the Paleozoic. 
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