Fig. 57.—Lepidodendron australe, McCoy.
Portion of Stem showing Leaf-cushions.
Slightly reduced. Carboniferous.
Manilla River, Co. Darling, N.S.W.
(Nat. Mus. Coll.)
Fig. 58—UPPER PALAEOZOIC PLANTS.
A—Rhacopteris inaequilatera, Göppert sp. Up. Carboniferous. Stroud, New South Wales.
(After Feistmantel).
Devonian and Carboniferous Plants.—
Plant-life was not abundant, however, until Upper Devonian and Carboniferous times. In the rocks of these periods we meet with the large strap-shaped leaves of Cordaites and a fern, Sphenopteris, in the first-named series; and the widely distributed Lepidodendron with its handsome lozenge-scarred stems in the later series ([Fig. 56]). Cordaites has been found in Victoria in the Iguana Creek beds (Upper Devonian), and it also probably occurs at the same horizon at Nungatta, New South Wales. Lepidodendron occurs in the Lower Carboniferous sandstone of Victoria and Queensland ([Fig. 57]): in New South Wales it is found at Mt. Lambie, Goonoo, Tamworth and Copeland in beds generally regarded as Upper Devonian. Both of these plants are typical of Carboniferous (Coal Measure) beds in Europe and North America. The fern Rhacopteris is characteristic of Upper Carboniferous shales and sandstones near Stroud, and other localities in New South Wales as well as in Queensland ([Fig. 58]). These beds yield a few inferior seams of coal. Girvanella is again seen in the oolitic limestones of Carboniferous age in Queensland and New South Wales.
Carbopermian Plants.—