il be 
from Northern China. 175 
amined a collection of plants obtained from Southern Shansi, 
and gave a list of them in the Bull. de la Soc. Géol. de 
France, 3rd series, vol. ii. p. 408. They included some of 
the species collected by Pumpelly, and were considered by 
M. Brongniart to represent the Upper Trias and Lower Jura. 
More recently Baron v. Richthofen obtained fossil plants from 
various parts of China; and these have been described by A. 
Schenk in vol. iv. of Richthofen’s ‘China.’ They represent 
two distinct horizons—one Carboniferous, and the other Meso- 
zoic. ‘Che former were found in the districts of Shansi and 
Hunan. Here were obtained Pecopteris cyathea, P. unita, 
Annularia longifolia, Brgt., A. maxima, Schenk, Spheno- 
phyllum emarginatum, Brgt., S. Schlotheimit, Brgt., Calamites 
igas, Bret., &c. Elsewhere in the provinces of Shansi and 
T'shili, Richthofen obtained a group of Mesozoic plants, among 
which M. Schenk recognized Pecopteris whitbyensis, Podo- 
zamites lanceolatus, and other species which led him to refer 
the strata containing them to the Brown Jura. 
It is known to most geologists that the extensive coal- 
basins of India, from which fossil plants have been described 
by Oldham and Morris and Dr. Feistmantel, are all of Meso- 
zoic age. The same is true of the coals of Tonking, Cochin 
China, from which a considerable number of fossil plants 
have been obtained by the French expeditions and described 
by M. R. Zeiler in the ‘ Annales des Mines,’ October 1852. 
It would seem proven, therefore, that the coal-basins of 
China (in which the coal is very largely converted into anthra- 
cite by local metamorphism) belong to two great geological 
systems—one, as indicated by the plants collected by Baron 
Richthofen and Mr. Hague, the equivalent of the Coal-mea- 
had these distinguished paleontologists had access to the specimens on 
which [ based my conclusions. Having reexamined these fossils, I take 
occasion to offer here a few additional notes upon them. 
Sphenopteris orientalis certainly belongs to the same genus with the 
ferns now called Thyrsopterts Murrayana and Th. Maaikana, Heer, the 
latter being specifically hardly different from it. Hymenophyllites tenellus, 
N., has finely dissected pinnules, and is certainly distinct. My Podo- 
zamites lancevlatus is that plant, and not a Phanicopsis, as suggested by 
Heer. This is shown by its nervation, and by the fact that the pinnules 
are pinnately set on a rachis, and are not fasciculate as in Phenicopsis. 
Taxites spatulatus, N., is the leaf of a conifer, and not of a cycad, as in- 
ferred by Heer. It has but a single nerve, the median, which is strong 
and traverses its entire length, and has a wedge-shaped base terminating 
in ashort twisted petiole. The publication of Heer’s important paper on 
the Jura flora of Eastern Siberia has given significance to certain speci- 
mens in Pumpeliy’s collection, and has enabled me to add to the list of 
species Baiera angustiloba, Heer (very near to B. Munsteriana), Pheni- 
copsis longifolia, Heer, and Czekanowskia rigida, Heer. 
