On Nummulospermum , gen. nov., the Probable Megasporangium of Glossopteris

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Abstract
Among the fossil plants of Permo-Carboniferous age in the collections of the Queensland Geological Survey, it was my good fortune to find the specimens which form the subject of this communication. The results of the examination of the whole flora are being published by the Queensland Geological Survey as a continuation of my studies of the Queensland fossil floras. As, however, the specimens above mentioned represent, if my interpretation of them is correct, a very important discovery in fossil botany, it was thought that the subject merited a separate communication. In doing this I hope that the attention of palæobotanists may once more be drawn to the subject of the systematic position of Glossopteris , and that the evidence here brought forward may be critically considered in its bearing on this problem. From time to time there have been suggestions that specimens of Glossopteris have been found showing structures regarded as sori, but in no case has anything definite been proved in this direction. As regards Australian specimens. these suggestions date back to 1872, when William Carruthers, in describing G. Browniana collected by Daintree from Queensland, said: ‘….. one shows some indications of fruit in the form of linear sori running along the veins, and occupying a position somewhat nearer to the margin of the frond than to the midrib.’ (Bibliography, No. 3, p. 354.) In 1905 perhaps the first definite step was taken towards the solution of the problem of the systematic position of this plant, in Arber's discovery of

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