304 FLORA OP LOWEE COAL MEASUKES OF MISSOUEL 



European paleobotanists. In the uniformity, consistency, and definition of 

 tlie correlative evidence the fossil plants here offer an example seldom 

 equaled iu any other class of paleontologic evidence. 



If we compare the Missouri plants Avith the floras of the other Euro- 

 pean basins, we shall find the synchronologic evidence essentially the same. 

 Thus, in brief, just as our flora, while it is largely identical and probably 

 contemporaneous, in part at least, with the "Transition series" of Grreat 

 Britain and the zone of BuUy-Grrenay, in the Valenciennes Basin, seems to 

 transgress slightly on the Upper Coal IMeasures and the Stephanian, so we 

 find it in the basin of Saarbriick near the top of the Westphalian (Saar- 

 brvcker ScJdchten'), where in the Geislautern beds, which probably extend 

 higher than the to]D of the Valenciennes series, being in partial con'espond- 

 ence with the British Upper Coal Measures, a number of Stephanian 

 (Otkveiler Schichten) types make then- appearance. 



In the basin of Zwickau, in Saxony, the treatise on the plants of which 

 by Greinitz is among the classics in paleobotanic literature, the closely 

 related and probably synchronous beds are toward the base of a continuous 

 series marked in passing upward by a mingling of Westphalian and Ste- 

 phanian forms, ^ Avhich give way to the predominance of the ordinary species 

 of the latter division. 



In the basins of lower Silesia and Bohemia we shall find large repre- 

 sentations of our species in the Schatzlar and Radnitz groups. With the 

 flora of the '^ Scha^Iarer Schichten," the monographic elaboration of wliich 

 was unhappily interrupted by the death of Director Stur, there is a close 

 relation, especially between plants from the upper beds of that group and 

 those which form the subject of this report. Of the groups in central 

 Bohemia, the "■Radnitzer Schichten" whose plants have received treatment 

 by Sternberg, Corda, Ettingshausen, and 0. Feistmantel, are of the greatest 

 present interest to us. The presence in this series, especially in the Swina 

 and Mostitz beds, of a large number of species either identical or closely 

 related to those from Missouri is at once apparent from an inspection of 

 Ettingshausen's plates or the memoirs of 0. Feistmantel,^ though the nomen- 

 clature in the former is largely different. 



' See Sterzel : Paliiont. Char. A. Oberen Steink. u. Rothl., p. 70. 

 - Verst. d. Ijiihui, Koblen-Ablag., i-iii, 1874. 



