UNGER ON THE FOSSIL FLORA OF PARSCHLUG. 11 



remark that the genus Pentremites was also represented in the Silu- 

 rian division of the palaeozoic formations. A species described some 

 years ago by Dr. Troost as Pentremites Reinwardti, I have myself 

 found very abundantly in the vicinity of Perryville, in the state of 

 Tennessee, along with Caryocrinus ornatus, in strata identical in age 

 with the Niagara group of the New York geologists, and consequently 

 with the Wenlock limestone of England. [J. N.] 



The Fossil Flora of Parschlug. By F. Unger. 



[From Steyermarkische Zeitschr., b, ix, Jhrg., 1 Heft, in Leon, and Bronn's Jahrb. 



1848, p. 505.] 



A VERY limited space around Parschlug has already furnished 141 

 species of fossil plants. This place is situated in the valley of the 

 Wurz, which runs for eight (thirty-seven English) miles from north- 

 east to south-west, and is nowhere above half a mile (2^ English) 

 broad, and is inclosed by lofty mountains of the slate-formation, whose 

 summits are from four to six thousand feet high. This valley during 

 the tertiary period appears to have been shut up at the lower extre- 

 mity, and to have formed a lake in which lacustrine beds with shells 

 of freshwater mollusks (Unio), shells of Cypris, wing-cases of Coleo- 

 ptera, and especially portions of plants, were deposited. The series 

 of tertiary strata is as follows : — 



15. Surface soil. 



14. Whitish yellow marl-shales Some fathoms. 



13. Hard marl-shales with the best impressions of plants, and 



clay-ironstone 5 inches. 



12. Soft grey slate-clay 7 feet. 



11. Blackish hrown slate-clay with leaf impressions Thin. 



10. Pitch-coal and slate-coal 7 feet. 



9. Fuller's earth Thin. 



8. Black lignite (brown coal) 3 feet. 



7. Marl-slate 6 feet. 



6. Compact marl-slate Thin. 



5. Slate-clay 9 feet. 



4. Black lignite (brown coal) 2 feet. 



3. Compact marl-slate with shells 8 inches. 



2. Black slaty lignite (brown coal) on slate-clay and sand ... 6 feet. 



1. Fine-grained quartzose sandstone. 



The beds are inclined at 22° to h. 9^ (S. 37|° W.), and are covered by 

 horizontal diluvial beds. The vegetable remains consist of leaves, 

 bud-scales, winged seeds and fruits, pods and other parts of the fruit, 

 branches without leaves, fragments of bark, rarely nuts and stone-fruits, 

 catkins of flowers and seeds. It is the autumnal stripping {Ahf'dlle) 

 of a forest vegetation, composed, according to the indications here 

 preserved, almost exclusively of trees and brushwood, with which five 

 plants are associated, which may have lived in marshy places in the 

 woods ; but no traces of water-plants have as yet occurred. All the 

 characters lead us to believe that soon after their fall from the trees 

 thase remains were collected by an inundation of a stream from a 

 wide-extended river-basin (for so great a variety of trees are never 



