1876.] Knowledge of the Fossil Flora in India. 343 



for it, which I adopt too, as it shows that the species belongs to the germs 

 Sphenophyllum and has the leaves in three pairs (trizygia), while it at the 

 same time recalls Boyle's generic name. 



That the fossil under discussion belongs to Sphenophyllum cannot, I 

 think, be doubted, as all the characters of the stalk and of the leaves agree 

 well. 



But it has a very characteristic peculiarity in the leaves, which is con- 

 stant in all specimens hitherto found: it is that there are in all speci- 

 mens only six leaflets in each articulum, forming three pairs of different 

 lengths and sizes, arranged on one side of the articulation. The leaflets 

 are entire ; the veins are very numerous in the broad portion of the 

 leaflets ; they begin as two main veins, which are forked at almost equal 

 distances dichotomously, until one can count 18 — 20 at the apical margin ; 

 some of them, especially those on the lateral margins, are continued 

 undivided after the second or third furcation. 



By this condition of the leaves, our species differs totally from all 

 palaeozoic forms, and is not at all opposed to the view of a mezozoic age 

 for the Baniganj group ; and thus the division of this genus into two 

 groups is quite justifiable. 



But there is another circumstance which renders this fossil important, 



It was formerly known only from Baniganj, and McClelland 's speci- 

 mens came from that locality. But later it occurred also at Talchir 

 (Cuttack) hi Orissa, in a dark sphserosideritic shale. These beds near Tal- 

 chir and Cuttack had hitherto been ranged with the lower portion of the 

 Damiidas or the Barakur group. 



The specimens from the Baniganj and Barakur group represent the 

 same species, only in the latter they are generally of slightly smaller size. 



We have, therefore, in Sphenophyllum trizygia already one typical 

 species which is common to the upper and to the lower portions of the 

 Damiidas. 



Lately Mr. Schenk* described a form from the Wealclen as Marsilidium 

 speciosiom ; but if I see aright, this form also exhibits two whorls of leaves 

 in the articulations of the stalk, and it would have been more natural 

 to have ranged it with SphenophyUum, as it is well known that no known 

 Marsileaceae have more than one whorl of leaves. 



Besides the Sphenophyllum trizygia, Ting, there are known from 

 the Baniganj coalfield other important forms belonging to the Fquisetaceae, 

 which I cannot omit to mention, but of which I give only a few figures, 



* Fossile Flora der Wealdenformation ; Palaiontographica, Cassel, 1871, p. 225. 

 PL XXVI, Fig. 3. 



