1S76.] 329 



XIX. — Contributions towards the Knowledge of the Fossil Flora in India. 



I. On some Fossil Plants from the Damuda Series in the Raniganj 

 Coalfield, collected by Mr. J. Wood-Mason. — By Ottokar 

 Feistmantel, M. D., Palaeontologist, Geological Survey of 

 India. 



(Eeceived December 1 ; — Read December 6, 1876.) 



(With Plates XV— XXI.) 



The present paper is the result of the examination of a fine suite of 

 fossil plants which has lately been brought clown from Raniganj by Mr. J. 

 Wood-Mason.* The collections in the museum of the Geological Survey 

 contain it is true also a good many specimens from the same coalfield and 

 from all other localities, which on a future occasion shall all be worked out 

 together ; but Mr. Wood-Mason's collection contributes so much to our 

 knowledge of this very important flora — containing as it does not only 

 some perfectly new forms but also good and better specimens of some of the 

 species already found — as to be of sufficient interest to merit separate 

 description, and this I have undertaken at the special request of Mr. Wood- 

 Mason. 



The Raniganj coalfield belongs to that portion of the Indian sedimen- 

 tary rocks which constitute the Damuda Series of the survey classification. 

 These together with the overlying Panchet group form the lower portion 

 of a whole system, which at first was designated the " Plant-bearing 

 Series," but which may more appropriately be termed the " Gondwana 

 System," the upper portion of which is formed by the Kach-Jabalpur and 

 the Rajmahal group. 



As the Damuda Series contains scarcely anything but plant-remains 

 as relics of the life that existed during the period of its deposition, of course 

 every contribution to the knowledge of that life is of high importance. 



For although several papers have been written on this lower portion 

 of the " Gondwana System," yet till lately no sufficient evidence as to its 

 age has been given. 



We have several excellent papers on the geology of this series. f 

 But the palseontological papers are ephemeral only and mostly of old 

 date ; and the plants described therein were far from sufficient to enable 

 one to form a proper idea of the horizon. Later on, when the officers of the 

 Geological Survey began their field-work, a great many specimens from the 



* See a short note on this subject in Ecc. Gr. S. Ind. IX. 4. 

 t Mostly in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India. 



