173 
sufficiently distinct to warrant a specific separation.* * * § McCoyf expressed the 
opinion that Morris’s species is identical with an English fern named by Bean 
(M.S.S .) Pecopteris Scarburgensis ,J a plant identical with Cladophlebis denticulata. 
The fertile specimen of the New South Wales fern figured by Renault § 
bear linear sori parallel to the secondary veins ; the sporangia are described 
as globular-elliptical in shape, and characterized by the occurrence of a sub- 
apical group of thicker walled cells, as in the recent Osmundaceae. 
Shirley,|| in referring to Renault’s description, speaks of the existence of 
other fertile examples in the Brisbane Museum. This author also describes a 
bipinnate frond from Ipswich under the name Scolecopteris australis,\ which he 
places in the Marattiaceae, on evidence which appears inadequate. It is not 
improbable that Shirley’s species is identical with Morris’s type, and with 
Cladophlebis denticulata. Jack and Etheridge** * * §§ are disposed to regard John 
ston’s Alethopteris serraiifolia as identical with Morris’s species, and they also 
suggest that Unger’s Polypodium Hochstetteri^ from New Zealand is indistin¬ 
guishable from the New South Wales type. 
The Indian specimens figured by Feistmantel as Asplenites macrocarpus%% 
may, I believe, be regarded as fertile fronds of Morris’s Pecopteris australis. 
Asplenites Ottonis, Schenk,§§ with which Feistmantel compares the Indian 
fronds, not improbably represents the fertile frond of Alethopteris Roesserti, 
Presl. Some fragments of pinnae from the plant-beds of the Yorkshire coast 
which I have described as fertile portions of Cladophlebis denticulata, |||| may 
be identical with Asplenites macrocarpus. These English fragments are not 
sufficiently well preserved to show the structure of the sporangia, but it has 
recently been pointed out that in the form and disposition of the sori they agree 
closely with fertile pinnae of Todea barbara.^ j Renault’s account of the spor¬ 
angia from the New South Wales frond afford more trustworthy evidence in 
favour of this comparison. On the whole, the safe course is to adopt the name 
Cladophlebis denticulata for this Australian fern, thus including it with fronds 
from various European localities in a type with an almost world-wide distri¬ 
bution in the rhaetic and lower jurassic periods, adding that such evidence 
as we at present possess points to a family relationship with the existing genus 
Todea. We might go further, and follow Renault in the use of the generic 
name Todea, or preferably Todites, for this type of frond ; but until additional 
fertile specimens have been examined it is better to adhere to the non-committal 
designation Cladophlebis. A specimen figured by Kurtz*** from a liassic 
horizon in the Argentine as Asplenites macrocarpus, 0. and M., is probably a 
* Oldham and Morris (63), p. 47. 
t McCoy (75), p. 16. 
t Seward (00), p. 140. 
§ Renault (83), p. 140. 
|| Shirley (98), p. 17. 
1j Shirley (98), p. 17, PL XII. 
** Jack and Etheridge (92), p. 370. 
ft Unger (64). 
tt Feistmantel (77), Pis. XXXVI., &c., and (77 ), PL I. 
§§ Schenk (67), Pl. XI. 
IJII Seward (00), PL XX., Fig. 36. 
H11 [Seward and Ford (03).] 
*** Kurtz (01), Pl. III., Figs. 1 and 2. 
