50 ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 480 



DEVONIAN PALEOBOTANY 



Tasmanites was reported from the Devonian of Illinois by Savage (1920) and 

 Schopf, Wilson, and Bentall (1944). The spore- like bodies had already been de- 

 scribed from the Pleistocene as reworked Devonian microfossils. No outcrops of 

 Devonian rocks containing abundant spores of other genera have been found in 

 Illinois, but two studies on Devonian terrestrial spores found in Illinois diamond- 

 drill cores have been published. In 1963, Guennel reported on a Devonian spore 

 assemblage that had been deposited in cavities in a Silurian reef in southern Illi- 

 nois. The palynology and petrography of core samples of a very thin Middle De- 

 vonian coal from central Illinois were the subject of a short report by Peppers and 

 Damberger (1969). 



No Devonian plant megafossils have been found in the Illinois Basin other 

 than petrified axes in the New Albany Shale Group, which is partly Upper Devonian 

 and partly Kinderhookian (lower Mississippian) in age (Hoskins and Cross, 1952). 

 Most of the Devonian plant localities occur outside the Illinois Basin and the dis- 

 coveries are not treated here. 



MISSISSIPPIAN PALEOBOTANY 



Very few studies of plants of Mississippian age have been made from the 

 Illinois Basin, although prospects for both palynological and megafossil studies 

 seem rather good. Many significant gaps remain in our understanding of evolu- 

 tionary events and plant groups between the Devonian and Pennsylvanian Periods. 



Hoffmeister, Staplin, and Malloy (1955) described spores from outcrop 

 and core samples of the Hardinsburg Formation (Mississippian) of Illinois and Ken- 

 tucky. The palynology of Chesterian and a few lower Pennsylvanian coals in the 

 Illinois Basin was presented by Kosanke at the 1959 International Botanical Con- 

 gress, but only an abstract of the study has been published. Seven of the coals 

 Winslow (1959) used inher reporton Illinois megaspores are Mississippian in age. 



Algal nodules, apparently of green algae of the Codiaceae, were reported 

 by Bieber (1965) from the lower and middle parts of the St. Louis Limestone in Put- 

 nam County, Indiana. 



After Worthen's (1860) very early report of Mississippian plants in the Illi- 

 nois Basin and subsequent descriptions of the material that Lesquereux studied 

 (Lesquereux, 1866, 1870; Jans sen, 1940a, b), very little interest developed in 

 Mississippian plants, although numerous reports of compression-impression vas- 

 cular plants were made by geologists working in southern Illinois. More than 30 

 localities are now known, and recent studies on Chesterian Series (upper Missis- 

 sippian) plants have appeared (Lacey and Eggert, 1964; Jennings, 1970). Petrifac- 

 tions from the Waltersburg Formation were reported and illustrated in a preliminary 

 study by Jennings (1970). Lepidodendron volkmannianum was recently reported 

 and illustrated from the basal St. Louis Formation in Meade County, Kentucky 

 (Browne and Bryant, 1970); this species was previously reported from the Chester- 

 ian Tar Springs Formation in Kentucky (Noe, 1923b) and Illinois (Lacey and Eggert, 

 1964). Jennings (1972) described a new lycopod genus, Valmeyevodendron, from 

 compressions from the Salem Limestone in Monroe County, Illinois. 



Lawrence C. Matten, paleobotanist at Southern Illinois University, has taken 

 the "Noe approach "of informing and interesting amateur collectors in the search for 

 plants of Mississippian age in southern Illinois (Matten, 19 71) . Matten was a stu- 



