THE 





GEOLOGECAL MAGAZ&E 



NEW SERIES. DECADE VI. VOL. V. 



No. VII.— JULY, 1918. 



0^tXC3rXlsr.A^JL, .A.:ElT'XClL.:Ei&. 



1. — AURANGKMENT OF THE LeAVKS IN THE AuSTKALIAN SPECIES OF 



jVoeggei^a thiopsis. ^ 



By E. Etheridge, jun., Director and Curator of the Australian Museum, 



Sydney. 



With a Postscript by Professor K. C. Seward, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of 

 Botany in the University of Cambridge. 



(PLATE XIII.) 

 I IT 1849 Professor J. D. Dana described certain leaves from the 

 L Illawarra District and Newcastle, New South Wales, occurring 

 in the Upper Coal-measures. To these he gave the name of 

 Noeijgerathia spathidata and N. media? Long after, in 1879 to be 

 exact, Dr. 0. Feistmantel established his genus Noeggerathiopsis for 

 the reception of similar leaves from the Talchir-Xararbari Beds of 

 the Lower Gondwana System,^ and from his remarks it may, by 

 inference, be concluded that Dana's were included in the new genus 

 also. This inference is justified by Peistmantel's later definite 

 reference of these leaves to Noeggerathiopsis ; * at the same time he 

 added another species, N. prisca, from the Lower Coal-measures at 

 Greta. He believed them to be closely allied with Cycadeaceae. 



It is not my intention to follow step by step the various suggestions 

 advanced on the systematic position of Noeggerathiopsis, nor express 

 an opinion on the vexed question of specific identity of the leaves ; 

 suffice it to quote Dr. E. A. N. Arber's summing up : " Considerable 

 difference of opinion has existed both with regard to the affinities of 

 tliis genxis and also in respect to the identity of some of its members. 

 The first Indian specimens were described by Bunbury in 1861, who 

 referred them provisionally to the Gymnospermous genus Noeggerathia. 

 This generic name was also at one time adopted by Feistmantel . . . 

 The same author, in 1881, pointed out the close similarity presented 

 by the leaves described as Rhiptozamites, by Schmalhausen, with the 



^ Noeggerathiopsis = Rhiptozamites, Schmalhausen (Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci. 

 St. Petersb., xxvii (7), No. 4, 1879). This identity is admitted by Schenk 

 (Zittel's Handbook Pal., ii, Palteoph., p. 330, f.n.) ; Kurtz {Revista Museo la 

 Plata, V, p. 130, 1894) ; Arber (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Iviii, p. 19, 1902) ; 

 Kurtz (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, lix, p. 25, 1903). 



- Dana, Wilkes U.S. Explor. Exped., Geol. x, p. 715, pi. xii, figs. 9, 10, 

 1849. 



^ Feistmantel, " Foss. Flora Gondwana Syst." {Pal. Indica), iii, pt. i, 

 p. 23, 1879. 



* Feistmantel, PalcBontograpliica , Supp. Bd. iii. Lief, iii, Heft ii, pp. 158, 

 162, 1879. 



DECADE VI. — VOL. V. — NO. VII. 19 



