PART 3.] 
Feistmantel: Fossil Floras in India. 
71 
it is only by its relations to other forms that it can be used as collateral proof. It is only 
characteristic of the series. This genus is— 
a , —Glossopteris, Brqt . 
However interesting this genus may be, it has, I think, been the chief cause of the con¬ 
fusion of opinions about the age of the series in which it occurs—I mean the confusion has 
been caused by the comparison of this genus with the same in Australia, where it is said 
to be found in palaeozoic rocks. From this evidence also our Indian Damuda groups 
in which Glossopteris is very common have been taken for palaeozoic, without considering 
that Glossopteris has in this case been found apart from animal remains which indicate a 
pa I teozoic age, but, on the contrary, only with plant remains, which are all mesozoic 
(Triassic). 
I should consider it a great paleontological mistake if I were to take a series in which 
the majority of the plants are of mesozoic age, and identical or closely allied with well 
known mesozoic (Triassic) genera and species, to be of any other age than mesozoic, 
only because one genus is also found in it which is also known from a portion of the coal- 
strata in Australia. Nobody will class the Permian and Carboniferous as identical, although 
some species of plants or animals may occur in both. 
We should rather say, some species of Glossopteris are found in the supposed palaeo¬ 
zoic coal-strata of Australia, but the genus also occurs in great abundance in the lower 
mesozoic coal-strata of India.* 
It is only remarkable that, while in Australia there are both fossil animals and 
plants of lower carboniferous age, of which the latter belong for the most part to 
genera identical with those found in Europe, there should be in the upper carbouiferous 
(without fossil animals) a sudden change in the flora and no true carboniferous plant found. 
But another locality is known for Glossopteris, Brgt.; this is in the Karoo beds 
of South Africa, described by Mr. Tate,t which series that author also puts in the Trias, 
and I think with justice. This would agree well with our series. Tate recognized in Africa 
the same forms which are most common here in India.J 
* See a similar opinion by Mr. Dawkins in the transactions of the Manchester Geological Society, Vol. XIV, 
Session 1875-76, Part II, p. 28: Age of the New South Wales coal-beds. The manner in which Mr. Dawkins 
expressed himself is quite correct and natural, hut I never before read anything about the association of the 
Glossopteris in Australia with Lepidodendrmi, Sigillaria, Catamites, etc., these being only found below the lower marine 
beds. 
t Quart. Journ. Geolog. Soc., 1867, p. 140 ff. 
x I cannot discuss this subject further here, aud I think it sufficient to quote the following literature about 
Glossopteris 
Brongnidrt : Bistoire desvdgetaux fossiles, 1818. 
Goppert: Systema filicum fossilium, 1836. 
Mc’Coy: On the fossil botany and zoology of the rocks associated with the coal of Australia. Annals 
of Natural History, Vol. XX, ser. 2. 
Banbury: Fossil plants from Nagphr. Quart. Journ. Vol. XVIJ. 
McClelland: Repirt, 1848-49; Calcutta, 1850. 
Dana: Geology (United .States Exploring Expedition), 1849. 
Tate: South African fossils. Quart. Journ., 1867 (Vol. XXI11). 
McCoy: Prodromus of Palatont- of Victoria, IT Decade. 
Schimper: Traitts do Pakoontolog. yegtitalc. 
W. B. Clarice : Remarks on the sedimentary formations of New South Wales, 1875. 
Also all the publications in our Memoirs which I quoted before should here be repeated, especially 
Mr. Oldham’s paper on the probable age of the rocks in Bengal and Central India (Vol, II), 
