15 
comparison; but on the whole I should imagine that the Mokoia beds belong to the 
lowest part of the Lower Jurassic, and the Mataura Falls beds to the higher part of 
the same. This conclusion, however, may well be only a matter of personal opinion. 
Age .—Lower Jurassic. 
H. The Jurassic Flora op Waikawa, Southland. 
Locality .—The fossil plants of Waikawa come from Curio Bay, some little distance 
along the coast to the west of the mouth of the River Waikawa, Southland^) (see 
map, fig. 5). The geology of the district has been described by Park(2). 
The beds of Curio Bay, Waikawa, are of particular interest as affording an 
example of a petrified forest of Jurassic age, in addition to furnishing many well- 
preserved impressions of the ordinary type. The petrified forest is exposed by the 
action of the sea on the shore-line, in the neighbourhood of high-water mark (see 
figs. 6, 7). The known examples of such fossil forests of Mesozoic age are ex¬ 
tremely few, and this is perhaps the most remarkable of all of them. 
The forest is thus described by Park(3) :— 
“ The sequence is as follows :—- 
“ (1.) Coarse pebbly sandstone, in places passing into a conglomerate. 
“ (2.) Green sandstones, alternating with blue shaly clays with distinct plants. 
“ The most characteristic feature of the underlying beds (No. 2) is the large quantity 
of silicified timber which occurs in them. Many stumps ranging from 1 ft. to 6 ft. 
in height, and in some cases as much as 2 ft. in diameter at their base, are still 
standing in the places where they grew. On account of their more flinty and 
refractory nature they withstand the action of the sea much longer than the sur¬ 
rounding rocks; and it is not at all uncommon to see an erect trunk standing 
out in fine relief in the face of the steep sea-cliff, the massive root and smaller 
branching rootlets extending far into the underlying beds, and the trunk passing 
upward through various layers or beds of sandstones and shales. As already stated, 
the rocks here are lying almost flat, and at low water form wide shelving ledges, 
which are thickly strewn with the fallen or prostrate trunks and limbs of these 
silicified trees, many of which are over 50 ft. in length, while one was measured 
which exceeds 100 ft.” 
Mr. Lillie visited this petrified forest in November, 1912, and in a letter to 
me written a few weeks later he thus describes it:—- 
“ At Curio Bay, Waikawa, there is a petrified Jurassic forest, showing the stumps 
of trees with their roots as they grew. The forest is undoubtedly in situ. The 
strata are very nearly horizontal, and the sea is exposing the bed which contains 
the forest, so that the rocky floor or strand of Curio Bay is the old forest-floor, 
with the stumps of trees standing up and the trunks of trees lying prostrate, just 
as if a Jurassic some one had been cutting timber! No trees, however, have been 
seen standing vertical and penetrating through several beds above, but both the 
fallen logs and the rooted stumps are contained within a single bed. The trunks 
vary from about 2 ft. in diameter to 1 in. or 2 in. Two hundred stems could easily 
be counted on the beach. 
“ Silicified wood has been obtained at intervals for some eight miles along the 
coast from Waikawa, and also inland near Waimahaka, so the area is a large one, 
and the forest is not confined to a few beds.” 
Figs. 6 and 7 show various parts of this fossil forest. 
(1) Waikawa, like Mokoia Farm, is in the present county of Southland, but in the old provincial 
district of Otago. See footnote (1) on page 12.— [P. G. M.] 
(2) Park (1887). (3) Park (1887), pp. 149-50. 
