THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE 



NEW SERIES. DECADE VI. VOL. L 



No. X.— OCTOBER, 1914. 



• I. — A Nkw Crktackous Plant from jSTigeria. 



By M. C. Stopes, D.Sc. (Lond.), Ph.D. (Mun.), P.L.S. 



(PLATE XXXIII.) 



ri^HE available information rcgardii]g tlie fossil plants of Southern 



1 Nigeria is of the meagrest description. Consequently great 



interest lies in the collections of fossil plants brought back from 



Nigeria last year by Mr. A. E. Kitson, E.G. 8., and it seems woitli 



while to publish a brief account of what appears to be a new species 



of Monocotyledon from among them. 



Mr. Kitson's collections of fossil plants, of both Cretaceous and 

 Tertiary age, are extensive, and include specimens which obviously 

 represent a large number of different genera, the majority being 

 species of dicotyledonous leaves. It is greatly to be deploi-ed, how- 

 ever, that the material is so fragmentary ; the local accidents of 

 deposition were evidently unfavourable to plant petrifaction. 



The one species which forms the subject of the present short note 

 is apparently part of the base of a monocotyledonous leaf. There 

 are a number of specimens of this between the layers of reddish-brown 

 impure shale of Cretaceous age which is literally packed with more or 

 less macerated vegetable fragments (see Fig. 3, PI. XXXIII). The 

 exact locality of their occurrence is given by Mr. Kitson as in the 

 Azuta lliver, east of the crossing of the TJdi-Okwoga road over it, 

 i.e. roughly 120 miles in a direct line north-west from Calabar on the 

 coast of Southern Nigeria. 



Regarding the geology of the region Mr. Kitson' writes: "The 

 oldest, known sedimentary rocks are Cretaceous marine and estuarine 

 fossiliferous shales, miulstones, limestones, sandstones, and grits. 

 They flank the Oban hills, and extend in a great mass northward into 

 Northern Nigeria; also westward under the Udi highlands, where 

 they grade iuto freshwater beds of similar character, and contain 

 a valuable black coal-field, discovered by myself and Mr. E. 0. Thicle. 

 In the Abakaliki district, in marine Cretaceous strata, there are lodes 

 of silver-lead, zinc, and iron ores, formed along fault-lines. Dolerite, 

 basalt, agglomerate, and tufi' occur as dykes, sills, or volcanic necks 

 in the Cretaceous area of the eastern province." 



Certain of the shales are rich in vegetable remains, and among the 

 innumerable plant-fragments in them wliich are macerated out of all 

 recognition are a number of net-like impressions varying in area from 

 1X2 up to 8 or 10 cm. These impressions consist of a blackened, 



' A. E. Kitson, "Southern Nigeria; some considerations of its Structure, 

 People, and Natural History " : Geographical Journal, January, 1913, p. 19. 

 DECADE VI.— VOL. I.— NO. X. 28 



