CARBONIFEROUS PLANTS FROM PERU * 



By EDWARD W. BERRY 



INTRODUCTION 



Just south of the port of Pisco the peninsula of Paracas, 

 celebrated in the War of Independence, juts out into the 

 Pacific, forming a bold wind and wave-swept headland (Lat. 

 13 55' S., Long. 76 33' W.). It is about 220 km. south of 

 Callao and 25 km. southwest of the port of Pisco, and is of 

 great geological interest since it is largely made up of con- 

 tinental Carboniferous sediments and constitutes one of the 

 very few deposits of this character in South America, and 

 the only known occurrence of rocks of this age on the West 

 Coast of South America. 



The outcrop of coal bearing rocks on Paracas was discov- 

 ered by F. C. Fuchs, who published a brief account l of it in 

 1900. Fuchs made a considerable collection of the fossil 

 plants, which are now in the Museum at Lima, where I had 

 the privilege of seeing them. He identified the following 

 forms : Catamites Suckowii, Sphenopteris Hartlebenii, Lep- 

 idodendron Sternbergii, Sigillaria tessellata, Stigmaria fico- 

 ides and Baiera pluripartita, and considered the deposit to 

 be of Upper Carboniferous age. 



The true Sphenopteris Hartlebenii of Dunker which has 

 since been referred to Ruffordia Goepperti is a characteristic 

 species of the Wealden, and the Paracas form which Fuchs 

 thought represented this species is Palmatopteris furcata a 

 rather widespread Carboniferous fernlike plant of the sphe- 

 nopterid group. Fuchs' Baiera pluripartita is not a Baiera 



* George Huntington Williams Memorial Publication No. 15. An 

 abstract of this paper was printed in Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 3, pp. 189- 

 194, March, 1922. 



1 Fuchs, F. C. Nota sobre el terreno carbonifero de la peninsula de 

 Paracas. Bol. de Minas Industria y Construcciones, tomo 16, No. 7, 

 Lima, 1900. 



