308 Miscellanea. 



species (vars. a. and B. of Brongniart) in nearly equal abun- 

 dance among the specimens examined, and some of the fronds 

 are of a size far exceeding any hitherto published, some of them 

 being six inches wide, which in the proportion of the small, perfect 

 examples would indicate a frond of more than two feet in leiigth. 

 I believe I have ascertained the rhizoma of this species, which is 

 furnished with ovate, clasping (or at least very convex) subcarinate 

 scales, having a divaricating reticulated neuration, resembling that 

 of the perfect frond, but much less strongly marked; these scales 

 are of large size, some of them being nearly an inch in length, and 

 terminating at the apex in a long flat linear appendage, about one 

 line in width, w-hich occasionally gives ott' small, lateral, flat, 

 membranous branches nearly at right angles ; the w'hole perfectly 

 resembling (except in size) the rhizomal scales of Acrosttchium, 

 Laromanes, and Hymenodium, as figured bj'' M. A. Fee in his beau- 

 tiful 'Memoire sur la Fam. des Fougeres,' and when combined with 

 the great similarity in form, habit and neuration, would w^arrant us 

 in presuming a strong affinity to exist between these genera. 



Abundant in the soft reddish shales of Jerry's Plains, and also 

 in the black shales and white clay beds of Mulubimba, N. S. W. 



Glossopteris linearis (M'Coy). PI. IX. figs. 5 & 5 a. 



STf). Char. Leaves very long, narrow, with nearly parallel sides > 

 midrib very large ; secondary veins fine, forming an angle of 

 about 50° with the midrib, anastomosing occasionally from the 

 midrib to the margin. 



It is only with the Glossopteris angustifolia (Br.) from the Indian 

 coal-fields of Rana-Gunge, near Rajemahl, that this long, parallel- 

 sided frond could be confounded, and it is distinguished easily from 

 that species by the fineness of the neurcfeion, which is as remarkably 

 delicate as that of the other is coarse ; the neuration of the G. 

 angustifolia is also distinguished by its great obliquity, forming an 

 angle of about 30° with the midrib, while the nerving of the present 

 species is not more oblique than that of the G. Broicviana or G. 

 Nilsoniana. In this species also, from the anastomosing being 

 continued up to the margin, it results that the nerves are little 

 clQger at the margin than at the middle of the leaf, while in the 

 G. angustifolia the anastomosing is confined to the central portion, 

 and the dichotomising goes on to the margin, wherein consequence 

 the neuration is finer and closer than towards the midrib. None 

 of the specimens are perfect at the extremities, the largest being 

 three inches long and seven lines wide at the basal fracture, and 

 diminishing about two lines in that length towards the distal end, 

 being about eight lines wide in the middle. Disconnected frag- 

 ments show that the base diminishes insensibly to a lengthened 

 petiole, as in the G. Browniana, and that the apex is elliptical and 

 pointed. 



Very abundant in the gray shale of Wollongong; not uncom- 

 mon in the hard siliceous schists of Arowa, N. S. Wales. 



Pecopteris? tenuifolia (M'Coy). PI. IX. fig. 6. 

 Sp. Char. Bipinnatifid (?) ; pinnules and rachis very slender, each 

 about half a line wide ; • pinnules very long, oblique, linear, 

 apparently simply united to the rachis by their entire base, one 



