288 PTERIDOPHYTA. 



CH. 



expressed the opinion that it was not clear to him if the plant 

 was specifically distinct from the Phyllotheca australis Brongn. 

 previously recorded from New South Wales. FeistmanteP 

 subsequently described a few other Indian specimens, but did 

 not materially add to our knowledge of the genus. Bunbury's 

 specimens were obtained from Bharatwada in Nagpur, in beds 

 belonging to the Damuda series of the Lower Gondwana rocks, 

 usualh^ regarded as of about the same age as the Permian rocks 

 of Europe. 



Phyllotheca indica is represented by broken and imperfect 

 fragments of leaf-bearing stems. The species is thus diagnosed 

 by Bunbury: — "Stem branched, furrowed; sheaths lax, some- 

 what bell-shaped, distinctly striated; leaves narrow linear, 

 with a strong and distinct midrib, widely spreading and often 

 recurved, nearly twice as long as the sheaths." An examination 

 of the specimens in the Museum of the Geological Society of 

 London, on which this account was based, has led me to the 

 opinion that it is practically impossible to distinguish the 

 Indian examples from P. australis described by Brongniart^ 

 from New South Wales. The few specimens of the latter 

 species which I have had an opportunity of examining bear 

 out this view. In the smaller branches the axis of P. indica 

 is divided into rather short intern odes on which the ridges and 

 grooves are faintly marked. In the larger stems the ridges and 

 grooves are much more prominent, and continuous in direction 

 from one internode to the next ; a few branches are given off 

 from the nodes of some of the specimens. The leaves are not 

 very well preserved ; they consist of a narrow collar-like basal 

 sheath divided up into numerous, long and narrow segments, 

 which are several times as long as the breadth of the sheath, 

 and not merely twice as long as Bunbury described them. Each 

 leaf-sheath has the form of a very shallow cup-like rim clasping 

 the stem at a node, with long free spreading segments which 

 are often bent back in their distal region. The general habit 

 of the leafy branches appears to be identical with that of 

 P. australis as figured by McCoy. 



1 Feistmantel (81), PI. xii. A. 2 Brongniart (28) p. 152. 



