A Contribution to our Knowledge of Wealden Floras, with especial reference to a Collection of Plants from Sussex

Abstract

I. Introductory Remarks In November of last year (1911) Mr. Charles Dawson, F.S.A., F.G.S., submitted to me for examination a small collection of plants obtained by him, with the able assistance of Father Teilhard do Chardin and Father Felix Pelletier, from the Wealden Beds of Sussex, for the most part from the neighbourhood of Fairlight. Several of the specimens, although specifically identical with previously recorded types, are better preserved or larger than any hitherto found, and furnish new facts of importance. The collection includes also several new species. In accordance with Mr. Dawson's wish, the specimens have been handed to Dr. Smith Woodward as a gift to the Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History). With the exception of the example of Sagenopteris mantelli shown in Pl. XI, fig. 3, which is from the Ashdown Sands, the fossils in the Dawson Collection were obtained from the Fairlight Clay. In the descriptive section of this paper are included a few specimens from the Rufford Collection (collected at Ecclesbourne, near Hastings), acquired by the Museum subsequent to the publication of the Catalogue of Wealden Plants. II. Description of the Specimens. Equisetales. Equisetites lyelli (Mant.). (Pl. XI, figs. 1 a & 1 b.) (Near Fairlight, Wadhurst Clay; Dawson Collection.) 1833. Mantell, ‘Geology of the South-East of England’ p. 245 & figs. 1–3. The specimen represented in Pl. XI, fig. 1 a, though smaller than some previously figured from the Wealden Beds of Sussex, exhibits certain features worthy of notice. The incomplete internode