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the flora of the carboniferous period, 
by robert kidston, f.r.s.e., f.g.s. 
First Paper. 
I have pleasure in complying with the request of your 
Council to read before your Society a short account of the 
Flora of the Carboniferous Formation, and in so doing shall, 
as far as possible, avoid technical language, as I address myself 
more specially to those who, though they have not previously 
given serious study to the subject, may have a wish to know 
more about the Fossil Plants which formed such a prominent 
feature in Carboniferous times, and who, one would fain hope, 
may be induced to give some attention to a branch of botany 
than which there is none that would more repay careful 
observation. 
There has long been undoubted evidence of the occurrence 
of Algae and Fungi in Carboniferous times in Britain, and 
recently I have met with a fossil in rocks of Calciferous Sand- 
stone age so similar in appearance to Fegatella, that the Liverworts 
must now be added to our Carboniferous plants. I shall not, 
however, enter into a detailed description of these fossils, which 
are of rare occurrence, but pass to those groups which occupy 
a more prominent place and of which there is more certain 
knowledge. A fossil which has been referred to the mosses was 
described from the French Coal Measures by MM. Renault and 
Zeiller, but hitherto no representative of this class has been met 
with in Britain. 
In the present paper we shall therefore reserve our remarks 
to the Ferns, Equisetites, and Catamites, leaving the Lycopods, 
Sphenophylls, Cordaitece., and Coniferoe for a future time. 
Before proceeding further, it is necessary to point out that 
many fossil plant genera are quite provisional, for palseobotanists 
have seldom the data for the definition of a genus in the clear 
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