10 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF QUEENSLAND. 
If that is so and the age of the bed be accepted as lower Cretaceous, 
what then is the age of these coal measures generally? It may be 
pointed out that of the nine species of fossil plants mentioned above, 
upon which Walkom based a Jurassic age for the Series, no less than 
six are long-ranged forms — occurring not only in definitely Jurassic beds 
but described also by Walkom (1918 and 1919) in beds of unques- 
tionably Cretaceous age elsewhere in Queensland 3 . The three excep- 
tions are Taeniopteris spatulata var. major, Phyllopteris feistmantelii 
and Taeniopteris crassinervis. Of these the first is merely a variety 
of a species that occurs both in the Stan well flora and in the Cretaceous 
floras described by Walkom. Then it should be noted that Walkom 
(1919, p. 23), when describing Phyllopteris lanceolata from the 
Cretaceous rocks of the Burrum Series, stated that “it is possible that 
P. lanceolata is a later, modified form of P. feistmantelii.” 
Thus there is nothing against either of these two species being 
of Lower Cretaceous age. There remains Taeniopteris crassinervis. 
Taeniopteris is of course a form-genus, but nevertheless, as such, ranges 
from Permian to Lower Cretaceous. Forms that are identified in 
Queensland as of this species belong to at least three natural genera 
(including Yabeiella) . Apart from this one record all the macro- 
taeniopterids in Queensland are from beds of early Triassic age — the 
Esk Series and the early part of the Ipswich Series. They are not 
known locally in beds that are undoubtedly Jurassic. 
Species, like the Stanwell species, with infrequent dichotomous 
branching of the veins, occur in both Jurassic and Cretaceous beds 
elsewhere ( e.g the lower Cretaceous beds of the Weald in England and 
of Maryland in North America). Only its size makes it unusual for a 
Cretaceous form — it reaches a diameter of five inches. I know of no 
other Cretaceous Taeniopteris more than two inches wide — larger forms 
that have been recorded in Cretaceous rocks as Taeniopteris (or Macro- 
taeniopteris ) are usually Nilssonia. 
In the nature of such evidence there is little against the flora 
being of Lower Cretaceous age ; and accordingly it is suggested that 
these Coal Measures generally are early Cretaceous — of Valanginian 
or near- Valanginian age. That is, in the local record, they may be 
regarded as approximate equivalents of the upper part of the Tiaro 
Series and of the Blythesdale Series generally, both of which lie below 
beds with Aptian ammonites. 
PALAEOGEOGRAPHICAL ASPECTS. 
Lower Cretaceous marine beds now are known at two localities 4 
along the east coast of Queensland — in the Maryborough-Bundaberg 
region where Lower Aptian marine beds interrupt a succession of 
Coal Measures; and here at Stanwell where Valanginian (?) beds also 
apparently are within a coal measure sequence. 
The general geological history of the Lower Cretaceous of Queens- 
land now becomes markedly similar to that of South and East Africa 
and of India. In all these regions the earliest Cretaceous sediments are 
3 The latter plants came from the Maryborough Series where they are inter - 
bedded in marine shales with Aptian ammonites ( Australiceras ) ; from the Burrum 
Series that overlies the Maryborough Series; and from the Styx River Series that 
has, in addition, dicotyledonous plants. 
4 That is, excluding remnants in Cape York Peninsula in the far north of 
Queensland. 
