W. Carruthers — Coal Plants from Brazil. 151 



III. — On the Plant Eemains fkom the Brazilian Coal Beds, with 

 Eemaeks on the Genus Flemingites. 



By W. Carrutheks, F.L.S., F.G.S. 



(PLATES V. AND VI.) 



THE specimens placed in my hands by Mr. N. Plant from Rio 

 Grande do Sul consist of a few specimens of coal and a consider- 

 able number of a highly ferruginous shale. The coal contains no re- 

 cognizable fossils, but they abound in the shale. The substance of 

 the plants is converted into a brittle coal, that possesses no structure, 

 and exhibits the form only of the organism, but the superficial struc- 

 ture and the venation is often so beautifully preserved on the surface 

 of the shale, when the coal is removed, that the nature of the fossils is 

 very clearly exhibited. I have, thus, been able to determine with 

 precision three species, and to recognise more vaguely a number of 

 otber forms, which, however, it would be injudicious, until additional 

 material is obtained, to name or describe from the specimens in my 

 possession. All these forms, as far as they can be determined, and 

 certainly the three well-preserved species, belong to Palaeozoic genera, 

 species of which occur in the Coal-measures of Britain. We are thus 

 enabled with certainty to refer the Coal-fieHs of the province of Rio 

 Grande do Sul to the Carboniferous period, although the coal itself has 

 more the aspect of being the product of a Secondary formation. 



The three species which I propose describing in this paper are new 

 forms belonging to the genera Flemingites, Odontopteris, and Noeggera- 

 thia. The most interesting of the three is the species of Flemingites, 

 of which there are a large series of specimens of the stems and foliage, 

 as well as of the detached sporangia. The characters of the species 

 are as follows : — 



Flemingites Pedroanus, sp. nov. Stem lepidendroid, scars small, obo- 

 vate, without any markings ; base of the petiole permanently attached 

 to the stem ; leaf slender, linear ; venation parallel. Fruit a cone (?) 

 the scales of which support numerous roundish sporangia. 



I have, at the suggestion of Mr. Plant, associated with this interest- 

 ing fossil the name of Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, who has on 

 many occasions rendered such substantial aid to scientific investigators, 

 as to have laid students of science under a debt of gratitude to him. 



Some years ago (Geol. Mag. Yol. II. p. 433) I established the genus 

 Flemingites on the fragment of a cone which exhibited the relation of 

 the small round sporangia so abundant in many coal-beds to their sup- 

 porting organisms. There were no indications, in the only specimen I 

 then had, of the plant on which the cone was borne, though it was evi- 

 dent from the structure and arrangement of the parts that it was the 

 fruit of a form of Lepidodendron. I have since seen more perfect speci- 

 mens from Burdie House in the collection of the British Museum, and 

 from the Newcastle Coal-field belonging to Mr. J. Duft' of Etherly. 

 In my recent examination of the rich collection of Coal plants in the 

 Newcastle Museum I found that the specimen figured in Lindley and 

 Hutton's Fossil Flora, plate x. fig. 1, as a form oi Lepidostrohus variabilis 



