290 R. EUieridge — Leaves of the Australian 



Indian and Australian species of Noeggerathiopsis, and the probable, 

 affinity of both these genera to the Mesozoic Cycads of the family 

 Zamise. 



" In more recent times, Zeiller, Seward, Solms-Laubach, and others 

 have regarded this genus as in all probability a member of the 

 Cordaitales, closely allied to Cordaites . . . 



" Zeiller has made a careful study of the leaves described by 

 Schmalhausen as Rhiptozamites. He regards them as belonging to 

 a true Cordaites, and as distinct from the members of the Glossopteris 

 flora described here, which, however, they closely resemble in several 

 respects . . . 



" Zeiller has pointed out that the constant occurrence of Cordaitean 

 seeds of the genera Cardiocarpus or Cardaicarpus in association 

 with N. Sislopi, is an additional argument in favour of referring 

 Noeggerathiopsis to the Cordaitales." ' 



One of Dana's figures exhibits a number of leaves "proceeding 

 from a common base, as if the cluster of leaves growing together, 

 and perhaps at the extremity of a branch ... In this cluster, which 

 is evidently a natural gi'oup, the leaves are of different ages . . . 

 The centre from which the leaves radiate has a shining coaly aspect, 

 as if a soft bud or vegetable base of some thickness had been pressed 

 down and carbonized".* On the piece of shale figured there are two 

 such groups.^ 



These illustrations of Dana's do not seem to have attracted the 

 attention of palseobotanists to the extent one would have expected. 

 As a matter of fact, I do not remember any direct reference to them 

 other than that of Tenison Woods,* although I think it may be 

 accepted that Ai-bei"'s interesting figure* of a specimen in the Clarke 

 Collection at Cambridge, and named by McCoy Zeiigophyllites elongatus, 

 but not of Morris, " a group of three leaves which appear to radiate 

 from some axis unfortunately missing," is of the same nature. I am 

 pleased, therefore, to be now able to supplement Dana's illustrations 

 by an account of four clusters, more or less complete. 



In Dana's fig. 9 there are portions of nine or ten leaves (it is 

 difficult to say how many exactly on the lower side of the figure) 

 varying from obtusely spathulate to lanceolate-spathulate, but all 

 narrowed at the base. At the right-hand side of the hand-specimen 

 is the other fragmentary^ cluster, but in this instance there is one 

 entire leaf and traces of three or four others. Unfortunately, these 

 figures do not afford any evidence of tlie phyllotaxis, whether these 

 leaves were in their order spiral, fascicled, or verticillate, or of 

 their method of attachment, amplexicaul, articulate, or even sub- 

 amplexicaul. Dana's suggestion of a cluster of leaves growing at the 

 end of a branch to some extent suggests a fascicular arrangement,, 

 a suggestion I return to later. 



^ Arber, Gat. Foss. Plants Glossopteris Flora Brit. Mus., pp. 178-9, 1905. 



2 .Dana, Wilkes, U.S. Explor. Exped., Geol. x, p. 715, 1849. 



" Dana, ibid., pi. xii, fig. 9. 



* Ten. Woods, Proc. Linn. See. N.S. Wales, iii, pt. i, p. 117, 1883. 



^ Arber, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Iviii, p. 18, pi. i, fig. 1, 1902. 



