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Coal deposits of India and Australia. They have a reticulated venation, and 
we can, together with the third genus, classify them as follows : — 
Venation reticulated ; frond simple or pinnatifid. 
(A) With a midrib : 
(«) Midrib conspicuous, frond simple — Glossopteris. 
{b) Midrib evanescing towards the apex ; frond pinnatifid — 
Sagenopteris. 
(11) No midrib, or indistinct: frond simple (?) — Gangamopteris. 
Genus — GLOSSOPTERIS, Brongniart , 1822. 
(Histoire des Vegetaux Fossiles, p. 222.) 
Gen. Char . — -Fronde simplici (an digitata ?), stipitata vei in petiolum 
decurrente,integerrima,lanceolata,spatliulata vel oblongato-obovata ; rliacliidc 
(costa) semper distincta, crassa an subcrassa, usque ad apicem producta, 
rarissime apicali in portione sube vanes cente ; nervis secundariis sub-angulo 
variant e ex rhachide eggredientibus, dichotomis anastomosantibus, retia 
diverse, totam folii superficiem explentia, formantibus. E ructificationc, ut 
videtur tribus in modis nota. — (Feist-mantel.) 
Ghs . — The chief character of this leaf, in comparison with the others 
of the above group, especially of Gangamopteris, is the presence of a distinct 
midrib, from which the veins pass out, forming nets. This genus is the 
oldest known from the Coal deposits of Australia and India, as already, in 
1828, it was established by Al. Brongniart, when three forms were described, 
two from India and one from Australia. Since then it has been found to be 
very numerous in Australia and India, and has also been met with at other 
places. 
It has a rather wide geological distribution ; for if we only take 
Australia and India into consideration, we find that it passes from Lower 
Carboniferous into Jurassic, and there is besides one species which in Europe 
is quoted from Tertiary beds. 
The distribution is about as follows : — 
(a) In Australia. — One species was quoted together with Otopteris 
ovata by M‘Coy from Arowa, but it was shown that this Otopteris is really • 
