On a Collection of Fossil Plants from South Africa

Abstract

1. I ntroduction . Since the publication of my account of the ‘Fossil Floras of Cape Colony’ in the fourth volume of the ‘Annals of the South African Museum’ (1903) additional records of some of the floras have been obtained from several localities by members of the Geological Survey of that Colony. It is this recently-acquired material, forwarded to me for examination by the Director of the geological staff, Mr. A. W. Rogers, which forms the subject of the present communication. The majority of the specimens were collected from the Molteno Beds and from the Burghersdorp Beds; a few were obtained from the Uitenhage Series, a higher geological horizon; and others from the Lower Karroo rocks. The Lower Karroo plants are dealt with in a separate paper by Mr. Leslie and myself on the Vereeniging flora; the Uitenhage species are described elsewhere. With the exception of Schizoneura africana , a Permian species from the lowest beds of the Beaufort Series, we are now concerned with the Molteno and Burghersdorp species alone. It is customary to divide the Karroo system of Cape Colony into three sections: the Lower Karroo, comprising, in ascending order, the Dwyka Series and the Ecca Series; the Middle Karroo or Beaufort Series; and the Upper Karroo or Stormberg Series. The uppermost strata of the Beaufort Series have been named the Burghersdorp Beds, from the typical development of the rocks in the neighbourhood of Burghersdorp, a small town about 30 miles south of the frontier of the Orange-River Colony, on the