190 R. D. Oldham— ,S'ome Bough Notes for the [No. 3, 



bow to his opinion, a feat I can the more easily perform that the exact 

 determination of the age of the Rajmahal series is irrelevant to my 

 present purpose, this being merely to point out that the flora, judged by 

 European standards, is of an extremely heterogeneous character. 



Turning now to the Damudas, we find that, out of a total 63 species, 

 only twenty shew any affinity to European forms : of these, six are repre- 

 sented by Rhsetic species, two of which are identical in Europe and in 

 India : eight are represented in Jurassic beds, one being identical with a 

 species from the Yorkshire Oolite, and two have their nearest allies among 

 living forms : while, of those which are related to sj)ecies older than the 

 Rhsetic, two are represented in the Permian, and two only are repre- 

 sented by allied species in the Trias. The flora of the Damudas is thus 

 seen to be as heterogeneous in its character as that of the Rajmahals and, 

 like that of the latter, would naturally be attributed to a Rhaetic age, yet 

 the two series are not merely separated by a break in the stratification, but 

 the two floras are so contrasted in their characters that, whereas the 

 Damuda flora is almost exclusively composed of ferns, that of the Raj- 

 mahals is markedly the preponderance of cycads, and, of all the Rajma- 

 hal species, three only are represented in the Damudas and those by 

 " allied species." These beds have been classed by Dr. Feistmantel as 

 Triassic, and the probabilities in favour of their being contemporaneous 

 in the Trias of Europe are about the same as those in favour of a Liassic 

 age for the Rajmahals or a Rhsetic age for either of the two, but this 

 is all that can safely be said. 



Turning now to the Kach flora, which, whether we judge from the 

 associated marine fauna or from the flora itself, is of Oolitic age, we 

 find, out of a total of 27 (excluding Algge) species, 18 are represented by 

 identical or allied species in Europe, fotoi^ are identical with European 

 Oolitic species, of which, however, one ranges down to the Rheetic, nine 

 more forms are related to European Oolitic species, while four only are 

 related to species older than the Oolite and in two cases at least the re- 

 lationship is not very close ; we have here, then, a much closer relation 

 with a definite European flora than is the case with the Damuda and 

 Rajmahal beds, and this, as I shall presently shew, is of considerable im- 

 portance in unravelling the history of the Gondwana age. 



In Australia, there is a series of plant-bearing beds whose flora shews 

 many affinities with that of the Indian Gondwanas, but which range over 

 a more extensive period of time, and are marked, both at their upper and 

 at their lower limits, by the association of the plants with marine fossils.* 



^ Conf. principally Rev. W. B. Clarke, Remarks on the Sedimentary forma- 

 tions of New South Wales, 4th edition, and Dr. 0. Feistmantel in Paloeontographica, 

 1878 (Appendix). 



