SECOND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF PENNSYLVANIA - REPORT OF PROGRESS P. DESCRIPTION OF THE COAL FLORA OF PENNSYLVANIA AND OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES BY LEO LESQUEREUX; ©1879

Tables of Contents: Volume I Volume III Volume II Atlas    Index

All Four Volumes: Scans and Webpage ©George Langford III, 2011

CHAPTER III.

Amount of Materials composing the Coal Flora.

§ 39.  Of the species of the Coal flora, named in the Table of Distribution, a few have been found and determined after the printing of the descriptive part. It is proper to mention them here in order to indicate the localities wherefrom they are derived and the names of the discoverers. From Cannelton, Mr. I. F. Mansfield has sent: Asterophyllites grandis, Neuropteris Grangeri, one leaflet which seems referable to Neuropteris Agassizi (or perhaps represents a form of Odontoperis Alpina), Pecopteris Cistii, Pecopteris Clintoni, Pecopteris vestita, Pecopteris dentata, Lepidodendron aculeatum, Rhabdocarpus clavatus, and especially a beautiful specimen, the top of a pinna of Dictyopteris neuropteroides, Gutb. From Arkansas we have from Mr. F. L. Harvey: Conostycus Broadheadi, Asterophyllites gracilis (in numerous fragments, some of them fructified), Calamostachys typica, Schp. (a splendid specimen, with fructifications distinct), Alethopteris Helenae, Pseudopecopteris muricata (abundant), Pseudopecopteris latifolia, Pseudopecopteris cordato-ovata, Sphenopteris crenata, Sphenopteris pseudo-Murrayana, Sphenopteris Hoeninghausii, Rhacophyllum filiciforme, Lepidodendron Veltheimianum, Lepidodendron modulatum, Sigillaria reticulata, Cardiocarpus orbicularis (in numerous specimens), Trigonocarpus Parkinsoni, and two new species of Sphenopteris of the type of Sphenopteris Hoeninghausii. From Mr. P. W. Emerson, St. Clairsville, we have still: Neuropteris anomala, Pecopteris elegans, Pecopteris squamosa (? a specimen too small for positive identification), Pecopteris Clarkii, Pecopteris Miltoni and Rhabdocarpus multistratus.* * Some species described by Prof. Fontaine in his memoirs on the New river and on the Conglomerate measures of W. Virginia are named here below, for a separate comparison of the plants of these groups. A recent revision made in the cabinet and with the assistance of Mr. R. D. Lacoe, of the fossil plants found around Pittston, has enabled me to fix with more precision the reference of the species to their horizon. § 40.  Prof. Schimper, in his Vegetable Paleontology, describes, deducting the synonymy, eight hundred and thirty species from the coal measures of Europe. About one hundred have been discovered there since the publication of that work. Of the whole number (say 930) nearly two hundred are recognized in the coal measures of North America. These European species, referable to all the sub-divisions of the carboniferous, have been described by more than fifty different authors, from Schlotheim, 1804, to the present time. As seen from the table we know as yet from the U. S. coal measures six hundred and thirty-five species, most of them described since 1850; for before that time a few coal plants only were published or figured by Steinhauer, 1818, and a few others (seventeen) by Brongniart (1828-1844) from American specimens. These materials we have to use:                  For a comparison of the U. S. Coal Flora with that of Europe.                  For a few remarks on the geographical distribution of the plants.                  For an exposition of their stratigraphical distribution.                  For a review of the origin, succession and modifications of some of the more important vegetable types, from the base of the, coal measures upwards.

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