A FERN FORMING A NEW GENUS — ETHERIDGE. 
135 
On a FERN (BLECHNOXYLON TALBRAGARENSE ), with 
SECONDARY WOOD, forming a NEW GENUS, from the 
COAL MEASURES of the TALBRAGAR DISTRICT, 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
By R. Etheridge, Junr., Curator. 
(Plates xxiv. - xxvii.) 
The very remarkable and interesting plant remains about to be 
described were entrusted to me by Mr. J. Clunies Ross, B.Sc. 
(Lond.), of the Technical College, Bathurst, who received them 
from Mr. W. Pascoe, the Technological Museum Attendant at 
Bathurst. The specimens were obtained from the Coal Measure 
strata in the neighbourhood of the Talbragar River, somewhere 
between Gulgong and Cockabutta* Hill in the County of Bligh. 
The Talbragar or Erskine River rises in the Liverpool Range, 
and flowing in a general south-west direction, joins the Macquarie 
River a little to the north of Dubbo. 
Beds of Permo-Carboniferous age, containing Vertebraria , and 
probably belonging to the Upper or Newcastle Coal Measures, 
have been casually referred to by Messrs. David and Pittman, f 
and it is from some portion of these that the fossils about to be 
described possibly came. 
There are ten specimens, six showing cross or transverse sections 
of the stem, with leaves attached, and four in profile, similarly 
more or less provided, to say nothing of sundry detached leaves, 
in a greater or less state of preservation. I believe these frag- 
mentary remains to be those of a Fern, and shall in consequence 
make use of terminology of this section of the Cryptogamia. 
In the first specimen the caudex (' ] or rhizome) is seen in cross 
section surrounded by seven radiating fronds, or portions thereof. 
(PI. xxiv. fig. 1.) 
The second is a similar fossil, but with eight radiating fronds, 
one protruding from below a layer of matrix at a lower level. 
The section of the caudex is rather less apparent than in the first 
example. 
* ? CJockaburra, i.e. f the “ Laughing Jackass/’ 
t Mem. Geol. Surv. N.S.W., Pal. Series, No. 9, 1895, p. ix. 
a 
