Bd. Ill: 14) 
THE MESOZOIC FLORA. 
21 
indeed, keeps the former species in the genus Sphenopteris, reserving the name 
Coniopteris for forms with this particular kind of fructification. 
In this connection may be mentioned yet another fragment, figured in pi. 3, 
fig. 27 b L It represents a part of a fertile frond. The pinnæ are long and linear, 
the pinnules narrow and simple; only some of the pinnules are fertile and these are 
then reduced to little more than a stalked sorus. The difference, as compared with 
Coniopte^'is liymenopliylloides^ consists in the long and narrow shape of the pinnæ and 
the simple pinnules; but this may be only a reduction brought about by the develop- 
ment of the fructifications. The specimen shows a marked resemblance to Dicksonia 
{Coniopteris) montanensis FONTAINE (in: WARD 1905, p. 286; pi. 71, figs, i — 4), 
in which species, however, the specimens known have all the pinnules bearing sori. 
Coniopteris hynienophylloides is a very widely distributed species, known from 
most Jurassic areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in strata of Lower Oolitic 
age. According to SEV^otRD (1904 a, p. 163, figs. 6 — 9) it is represented by a slightly 
different form (var. australicd) in Australia. The fertile specimens figured by him 
have the pinnules less reduced than is usual in the English and also in the Graham 
Land specimens. Some species of Sphcnopteris figured by MORRIS (in: Strzelecki, 
1845) and M’Coy (1847) show a certain resemblance to C- hynienophylloides^ too; 
but it is not possible to be sure of their specific identity. 
Coniopteris cfr. nephrocarpa (Bunb.). 
PI. 3, figs. II — \\ b, 12 — 12 Æ?. 
Sphenopteris nephrocarpa, Bunbury 1851, p. 179; pi. 12, figs. \ a, \ b. 
Coniopteris hvnienophylloides, Seward 1900, pro parte, p. 99. 
The specimen figured in pi. 3, fig. ii, seems to come nearer to the plant de- 
scribed by Bunbury as Sphenopteris nephrocarpa than to any other known Jurassic 
fossil. Sph. nephrocarpa is now mostly included in Coniopteris hynienophylloides 
and it is undoubtedly rather like some of the fertile specimens which are generally 
referred to that species. It seems, however, to be equally appropriate to keep it as 
a separate species. 
The specimen in fig. 11, pi. 3, represents the larger part of a frond, or more 
probably of a pinna of a bipinnate frond. It is long and narrow, of unusually equal 
breadth, with a comparatively slender rachis. The pinnules are attached by a con- 
tracted base, at a very wide angle which in the lower part is nearly a right angle. 
They are linear in shape and taper very gradually from the base to the apex. Each 
pinnule is pinnately dissected into rounded lobes, 5 — 7 on each side. In the lower 
pinnules the lobes are free nearly right down to the rachis, and the basal ones are 
^ See the note 2, p. 19. 
