142 Geological Society. 



2. " Notes on some Polyzoa from tlie Lias." By Edwin A. Wal- 

 ford, Esq., E.G.S. 



The Author briefly reviewed the work of Etheridge, Vine, and 

 others in the tabulating of the British Liassic Polyzoa, and mentioned 

 also the labours of Terquem and Piette, Dumortier, and others in the 

 same direction in France and Germany. He directed attention to a 

 species described by Prof. Tate from the Lias of May, jSTormandy, 

 under the name Spiropora liassica, and described specimens in his 

 own collection from a similar horizon in the Midlands, with which 

 it had been confounded. The English forms have very varying 

 modes of growth — sometimes foliaceous after the fashion of the 

 Diastopora proper of Haime, at other times ramose and cylindrical, 

 like Entahpliora. The latter habit, together with the long, and often 

 partly free, zooecia, suggest the relationship of the species with the 

 Tuhuliporce. The exceptional state of preservation of the specimen 

 is such as to show the cells in a perfect condition, with solid circular 

 calcareous closures within the orifice of the zooecial tubes, a feature 

 common to both the foliaceous and the cjdindrical forms. The 

 surface-pores are unusually well preserved, and appear to be similar 

 to those of the recent Cyclostomatous Polyzoa. The name of Tuhu- 

 lipora inconstans was proposed for the species. 



Mention was also made of other fragments of Polyzoa of doubtful 

 relationship occurring in the same beds. 



3. " Report on Palseo-botanical Investigations of the Tertiary 

 Flora of Australia." By Dr. Constantin Baron von Ettingshausen, 

 For.Corr.G.S. 



Mr. "Wilkinson, the Government Geologist of j!^ew South "Wales, 

 supplied the Author with the material for a memoir on the Tertiary 

 flora of Australia, recently contributed to the Imperial Academy of 

 Sciences at Vienna. He there describes and figures 128 species of 

 fossil plants. These are distributed amongst 72 genera and 36 

 orders. The Cryptogamae contain 2 species, the Gymnospermse 12, 

 the Monocotyledons 2, the Apetalae 56, the Gymnopetalae 11, and 

 the Diapetalee 40. Of the orders, the Proteaceae contain 20 species, 

 the Cupuliferae 14, the Cruciferae 11, the Myrtacese 10, the Laurin- 

 acese 7, the Leguminosae 6, and the Moreae, Apocynaceae, and Celas- 

 trineae 5 species each. 



The follovdng is a synopsis of the general conclusions derived 

 from the study of the Tertiary flora of Australia : — 



1. The geographical distribution of plants in Australia differed in 

 many ways from the present one. 



2. Types of plants of the Southern, as well as of the Northern 

 hemisphere are associated together. 



3. The flora-elements represented chiefly contain Phylones (ances- 

 tral types) which are also common to other Tertiary floras of the 

 globe. The character of the Tertiary flora of Australia cannot 

 therefore be considered essentially different from that of the latter. 



