On the Clarke Collection of Fossil Plants from New South Wales

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Abstract
The earliest scientific descriptions of fossil plants, from the rocks of New South Wales, are those by Brongniart of the genera Glossopteris and Phyllotheca , published in his ‘Prodrôme’ in 1828. In his ‘Histoire,’ published in the same year, figures and specific descriptions of these, and other genera, are to be found. It was not, however, until some years later that the first systematic collections of fossil plant-remains from this region were begun by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, Count Strzelecki, and by Dana. In 1845 Morris published an account of Strzelecki's collection; and two years later McCoy examined the Clarke Collection, made between 1839 and 1844, which he described in a paper in the Annals & Magazine of Natural History, in 1847. Dana's specimens were described in 1849. The Clarke Collection, numbering nearly 2600 specimens of all kinds, including some 80 fossil plant-remains, was, by the great generosity of its owner, presented to the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge, in November 1844. As already stated, the more important paleeobotanical specimens in this collection were described by :McCoy in 1847, twelve being regarded as new types. It has been thought, however, that a reexamination of this early collection, in the light of the recent advancement of our knowledge with regard to the structure and affinities of fossil plants from Australia, India, South Africa, and elsewhere, might not be without value, especially as the more modern memoirs on the fossil flora of Australia, by Feistnnantel and Tenison-Woods, contain in several instances only the original

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