very long, parallel-sided, alternate, sub-alternate or opposite, very regular in appearance, 
and equidistant, markedly confluent. Midrib strong, tapering gradually, and extending 
to the apices o£ the pinnules ; reticulation small, consisting of elongate, rather 
irregular scale-like vesicles ; veins almost at right angles to the midrib, bifurcating 
immediately after leaving the reticulation. 
Obs. Amongst a collection of plants in the Australian Museum, from the 
Ipswich Coal Measures on the Darling Downs, near Tooivoomba, I observed some fairly 
good specimens of what appeared to be Alethopieris ; but the narrow elongate pinnules, 
springing horizontally from the raehis, did not allow the plant in question to fit happily 
into that genus. Close examination of the better-preserved examples, revealed a small 
and very delicate reticulation, consisting of small, elongate, and irregular vesicles, if I 
may call them so, lying close to the midrib of each pinnule. The appearance presented 
by this reticulation is very well shown in Schimper’s figure of Fhlehopteris affinis, 
Schenk.* 
Portions of this fern, which I have called Fhlebopteris aleihopteroides, are as 
much as seven inches in length, so that the pinnae must have, attained a no mean size. 
Individual pinnules, although imperfect, still measure two and a-half inches in length, 
their .breadth, which is very disproportionate to the length, remaining very uniform. 
The greatest width I have observed a pinna to attain, and that again imperfect, was 
four and a-quarter inches. The pinnules are, on an average, from a quarter of 
f^u inch to five-sixteenths wide, and are separated from one another by interspaces 
of about a quarter their width. A good deal of irregularity exists in the manner 
lu wliich the midribs of the pinnules arc given off from opposite sides of the 
vachis. Some are opposite, others are regularly alternate, many are sub-alternate, and 
others are even intermediate between these positions. 
The veins are very regular, and given off at an angle which slightly varies from 
3 right angle with the midrib, to one more acute. They bifurcate shortly after leaving 
the reticulation, and proceed direct to the margin. Along the raehis, on the confluent 
portions of the pinnules, the veins are longer and much wider apart. 
The raehis is always broad and well marked, being rigid and fluted ; and it may 
not be uninteresting to note a segmentation of the stem in some of the specimens, and 
always at the base of the pinnules, but arising only from fracture. 
The regularity and stoutness of the raehis and pinnules give to this fern, 
©specially when not too well preserved, almost the aspect of a Cycad. 
In the form of the network on each side the midrib, our species is much like 
the figure of P. contigua, L. and H., given by Lyell t under the name of Semitelitet 
^rownii, Gopp. 
The fructification is shown on a specimen in the Mining and Geological Museum, 
Sydney, the position of the sori being similar to that of Brongniart’s P. polypodioides — 
at the ends of short nervulos which do not reach the margin of the pinnules. The 
fructification in its present state is stellate and occupies a large portion of the pinnule 
surface, and in its minute structure much resembles that of P. ScJiouvii, Brong. It 
^©uld seem that the indusium had in each case burst, leaving the interior of the 
®ori exposed, in which case the sporangia are represented by the small radiating sub- 
divisions. 
hoc. Darling Downs, near Toowoomba (The late G. S. Hartmann — Australian 
i^useum, Sydney). 
* Loc. cit. Atlas, t. 39, fig. 15. 
t Student’s Elements of Geology, 2nd Edition, 1874, p. 337, f. 357. 
