30 a 



jUisirellanea* 



On the Fossil Botany and Zoology of the Rocks associated 

 WITH THE Coal of Australia. By Frederick M'Coy, M.G.S. 

 and N.H.S.D. &c. 



{^Annals and Magazine of Natural History.'] 

 (Nine Plates.) 



The following paper has been drawn up from an examination of 

 specimens collected by the Rev. W. B. Clarke and sent to the Rev. 

 Prof. Sedgwick, who kindlj"^ allowed the writer to make this use of 

 them. 



The species will be first noticed, and the new forms described, 

 after which some observations will be offered on the relative ages 

 of the Australian coal-fields, from a comparison of their organic 

 remains with each other, and with those of other countries ; pre- 

 mising that the extent of our materials enables this to be attempted 

 in a more extended and precise manner than heretofore, and that 

 several of the new forms described are calculated to throw much 

 light on the fossils of our own country. 



In this first part of my paper I wish to express my obligations 

 to the Rev. Prof. Henslow and Mr. Babington for the kindness 

 with which they allowed me the use of their herbaria on all occa- 

 sions when I found it necessary to work out for myself points of 

 structure in recent plants, neglected by botanists and omitted in 

 their works, but which are of the highest importance in the inves- 

 tigation of fossil plants. To the facilities afforded by the former 

 for my examination of the New Holland plants growing in the 

 houses of the Cambridge Botanic Garden, I am mainly indebted 

 for the maturing my views of the affinities of the genus Phyllotheca. 



PLANTiE. 



Class AcROGENS. {Al. Lycopodales). 



Ord. Marsileace^ (?). 

 Vertebraria. (Royle). 



This genus has been proposed by Prof Royle in his ' Illustra- 

 tions of the Botany of the Himalaya Mountains' for two species 

 of fossil plants from the supposed oolitic coal-field of Burdwan, 

 but without any description or definition. Similar bodies are not 

 uncommon in the shales and clays of the Australian coal-fields ; 

 but although the genus is noticed by Unger in his ' Conspectus 

 Florae Primordialis,' and Mr. Morris has noticed its occurrence 

 in this district, no botanist has as yet given any descriptive account 

 either of the genus or species ; and so obscure are the relations to 

 other forms, that doubts have even arisen as to what part of the 

 plant the radiated cylindrical fossils might be supposed to repre- 

 sent, and how its parts should be named. A distinguished botanist 



