20 
— 1 — 
113°E 
S. McLoughlin 
BONAPARTE BASIN 
' BROWSE BASIN 
' , 
Broome 
CARNARVON 
BASIN 
CANNING 
BASIN 
Callawa 
Nanutarra 
Giralia ( 
-Anticline}* 
Cronin Hill: 
K n: r;r - 
OFFICER 
BASIN 
eucla ! 
BASIN 
iGingin 
■ Bullsbrook 
I COLLIE 
BASIN, 
PERTH 
BASIN 
< BREMER BASIN > ^ 
Figure 1 Map of Western Australia showing Phanerozoic sedimentary basins and principal Cretaceous plant 
macrofossil localities (solid squares). 
significant contributions include those of Seward 
(1904), Chapman (1908, 1909, 1914), Walkom (1918, 
1919a), Medwell (1954a,b), Glaessner and Rao 
(1955), and Dettmann el al. (1992). Although 
several stratigraphic papers have provided lists of 
fossil plants recovered from Western Australian 
Cretaceous strata (e.g., Brunnschweiler 1960; Cox 
1961; Playford et al. 1976) many of these 
identifications are not supported by illustrations or 
descriptions and are commonly erroneous. A small 
assemblage described and illustrated by Walkom 
(1944) from strata underlying the Molecap 
Greensand near Gingin is redescribed herein. 
White (1961a) briefly described and illustrated 
plant remains recovered from the Canning Basin 
by Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources 
regional geological surveys. McLoughlin and 
Guppy (1993), and McLoughlin and Hill (in press) 
provided preliminary revised lists of Western 
Australian Cretaceous plant fossils from several 
sedimentary basins and briefly discussed some 
palaeoclimatic implications of the floras. 
McLoughlin et al. (1994) detailed the anatomical 
character and palaeoenvironmental significance of 
silicified and phosphatized woods from the 
Birdrong Sandstone, Carnarvon Basin and 
Backhouse et al. (1995) described lignitized but 
anatomically similar woods from the Barremian to 
earliest Aptian Nakina Formation of the Collie 
Basin. The Cretaceous palaeobotanical literature 
from other Gondwanan continents (especially India 
and South America) is extensive. Therefore, 
synonymy lists provided here deal only with 
previously figured or described Western 
Australian fossil plants. 
CRETACEOUS STRATIGRAPHY 
Western Australian Cretaceous plant 
macrofossils have been recovered from the Perth, 
Carnarvon, Canning, and Officer Basins (Figure 1). 
Plant remains are best represented in Early 
Cretaceous non-marine strata (Figure 2). Due to a 
dearth of palynological studies and the absence of 
