1GG I). WHITK — KKLATIYK AGES OF KANAWHA-ALLEGHENY SERIES 



and the omnipresent ferns of the Clarion and succeeding groups in 

 northern Pennsylvania. The unfailing forms of the Neuropterids, the 

 common and characteristic Annularis and Sphenophylla* which pre- 

 dominate at the hase of the Allegheny series, as well as the entire group 

 of higher Pecopterids, appear, so far as my inspection of more than 100 

 collections has extended, to be entirely absent from the lower half of 

 the Kanawha series in southern West Virginia. 



The plant life of the lower half of the Kanawha formation in southern 

 West Virginia differs from that of even the lower portion of the Alle- 

 gheny series of northern Pennsylvania, not only by the almost entirely 

 different forms in the fern flora, but by the still more important rela- 

 tions of the flora as a whole. The fern (Annularian and Sphenophyl- 

 lean) elements in the flora of the Allegheny series are essentially totally 

 different from those in the Virginian Pottsville and offer a well marked 

 contrast to the types found below the Homewood sandstone in the Alle- 

 gheny valley or below the Buck Mountain conglomerate in the Pottsville 

 district of the southern Anthracite field of Pennsylvania. The floras of 

 the Allegheny series are by their composition bound to the higher coal 

 measures. The plant associations in the Freeport group are, as may be 

 noted in a scrutiny of the list (page 154), characterized by the develop- 

 ment of the higher Pecopterid flora. The ferns of the Kittanning (page 

 151), like those of Mazon creek, Illinois, and Henry county, Missouri,f 

 show the almost entire absence of Pottsville types, and while not so 

 highly developed, especially in Pecopterids, they still compose a flora 

 that is in close agreement with those of the base of the Upper Coal 

 Measures or the Middle Coal Measures of the Old World. The flora of 

 the Clarion group (see list, page 148) is characterized by a smaller pro- 

 portion of the higher Pecopterid elements, and a consequent reduction 

 in richness, rather than by any considerable representation of Pottsville 

 ferns, Annularis or Sphenophylla. The flora of this the lowest group 

 of the Allegheny series, with its abundant Neuropteris ovata, Neuropteris 

 scheuchzerij and " Pecopteris villosa (?)," as well as Annular ia stellata, An- 

 nularia sphenophylloides, and Sphenophyllum emarghiatum, is still bound 

 to the higher floras, and is comparable to the Middle Coal Measures of 

 Great Britain, or the upper zone of the Valenciennes, or the upper por- 

 tion of the Westphalian series of the Old World. 



In contrast to the composition and affinities of the floras of the Alle- 



* The form of Sphenophyllum cuneifolium in the Allegheny series is broad leaved, often irregularly 

 dissected in narrow tapering teeth, while that from the Lower Kanawha group and the Sewell for- 

 mation has narrow, long, lax leaves, rarely cut in more than four relatively broad, obtusely pointed 

 teeth. 



fAge of the coals of Henry county, Missouri. Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 8, 1897, pp. 287^304, 

 Flora of the Lower Coal Measures of Missouri. Mon. U. S. Geol, Surv., vol. xxxvii, 1899. 



