﻿Vol. 64.] POSSIL PLANTS FROM SOUTH AFRICA. 83 



5. On a Collection of Fossil Plants from South Africa. By 

 Albert Charles Seward, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., Pro- 

 fessor of Botany in the Uniyersity of Cambridge. (Read 

 jS'ovember 6th, 1907.) 



[Plates II-VIII.] 



Contents. 



Page 



I. Introduction 83 



II. Description of the Specimens 85 



III. Conclusion 104 



IV. Bibliography 105 



I. Intboduction. 



Since the publication of my account of the ' Fossil Floras of Cape 

 Colony ' in the fourth volume of the ' Annals of the South African 

 Museum ' (1903) additional records of some of the floras have been 

 obtained from several localities by members of the Geological 

 Survey of that Colony. It is this recently-acquired material, 

 forwarded to me for examination by the Director of the geological 

 staff, Mr. A. W. Rogers, which forms the subject of the present 

 communication. The majority of the specimens were collected 

 from the Molteno Beds and from the Burghersdorp Beds ; a few 

 were obtained from the Uitenhage Series, a higher geological 

 horizon ; and others from the Lower Karroo rocks. The Lower 

 Karroo plants are dealt with in a separate paper by Mr. Leslie and 

 myself on the Yereeniging flora ^ ; the Uitenhage species are de- 

 scribed elsewhere." With the exception of Schizoneura africana, 

 a Permian species from the lowest beds of the Beaufort Series, 

 we are now concerned with the Molteno and Burghersdorp species 

 alone. 



It is customary to divide the Karroo system of Cape Colony into 

 three sections ^ : the Lower Karroo, comprising, in ascending order, 

 the Dwyka Series and the Ecca Series ; the Middle Karroo or 

 Beaufort Series ; and the Upper Karroo or Stormberg Series. The 

 uppermost strata of the Beaufort Series have been named the 

 Burghersdorp Beds, from the typical development of the rocks 

 in the neighbourhood of Burghersdorp, a small town about 30 miles 

 south of the frontier of the Orange-Eiver Colony, on the railway 

 which runs from East London to the Transvaal. The Molteno 

 Beds, so named from the town of Molteno, about 25 miles south 

 of Burghersdorp, are placed at the base of the Stormberg Series, 

 the sequence being, then, as follows : — 



^ Seward & Leshe (08). Tbe numerals in parentheses after authors' names 

 refer to the dates in the Bibhography, p. J 05. 



2 Seward (07*). 



3 Rogers (05) p. 147 ; Hatch & Corstophine (05) table facing p. 33. 



• G 2 



