504 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. toi..41. 



type peculiar to this series in China, and several other insufRciently 

 illustrated plants, including Sphenopterids, suggestive of the delicate 

 forms in the Dunkard group in America. 



The fragmentary flora from Jantai comprises forms referred by 

 Zalessky to Odontopteris reicTiiana, Callipteridium gigas, Pecopteris 

 cyathea, Cordaites principalis, and Plagiozamites planchardi, all 

 characteristic of the lower Permian or highest coal measures of 

 Europe, in company with Lepidodendron oculis-felis, and the small 

 form of Stigmaria already mentioned. The flora of this, the nearest 

 of the Asiatic localities to the American Continent, is clearly near 

 the Permian-Pennsylvanian border line as pointed out by Zalessky, 

 while, as already remarked, the floras from Shansi and Sheng-King, 

 which are regarded by paleobotanists as approximately contem- 

 poraneous, can not be much older; they are certainly uppermost 

 Stephanian, if not actually basal Permian. Those paleontologists 

 and geologists who regard the upper part of the Commentry series 

 in France as Permian can have no doubt as to the reference of all 

 these plant beds to the latter epoch. 



From the foregoing it seems probable that the most important 

 coal-producing series in the Paleozoic of China and Manchuria are 

 referable to the lower Permian and perhaps the uppermost Stephan- 

 ian, there being, as in the western interior and the Appalachian 

 basin of North America, no distinct discordance between the beds 

 of the two epochs. 



According to my interpretation the genus Oigantopteris is not 

 closely related to any known Paleozoic type. Its nearest, though 

 perhaps very distant, relatives are, I believe, to be found in the 

 fossils described by Morris as Pecopteris goepperti, really a Callipteris, 

 from the Permian sandstones near Bielebei in the Urals. In fact 

 some of the Russian fossil fragments, such as those shown in figures 

 2^ and 2°, on plate A, of the Geologic de la Russie,^ or the illustrations 

 comprising figures 1^, I*' and 1® on plate F of the same great work, 

 have so much in common with our genus, not only as to form but 

 also as to the aspect of the nervation, that, had not Brongniart 

 described the nerves as nonanastomosed, a reexamination of the 

 type material would be suggested in order to ascertain whether, 

 notwithstanding the apparent unity of the succession to the Callipteris 

 type of pinna shown in the other illustrations, some of the specimens 

 submitted to Morris and Ad. Brongniart may not really belong 

 to the Gigantopteris type. Before passing it may be remarked that 

 the western American collections seem to contain two or three 

 XJralian Permian forms not yet known in western Europe or eastern 

 North America. 



1 Murehison, Verneuil, and Keyserling, G6ologie de la Russie et des Montagues de rOural, vol. 2, pt. 3, 

 IS45, pp. 1 and 5. 



1 



