Page:The Living Flora of West Virginia and The Fossil Flora of West Virginia.pdf/414



The following list includes the species of fossil plants published by various geologists as having been found in the upper Paleozoic and Pleistocene formations of West Virginia. The plant-bearing beds represented belong to the Pocono, the basal formation of the Mississippian ("Lower Carboniferous") series; the Princeton conglomerate member, of Chester age, also in the Mississippian series; several formations in the Pottsville group, the basal division of the Pennsylvanian ("Upper Carboniferous") series; and from various members or beds in the Allegheny, Conemaugh and Dunkard formations which constitute the remainder of the Pennsylvanian and the Permian in the bituminous regions of the Appalachian trough. The Quaternary system is represented by the Carmichaels clay, an interglacial deposit of pre-Wisconsin age.

In West Virginia the fossil plants of some of the formations, like the Allegheny, for example, have received very little attention, and the lists for these formations are accordingly short, while in others, like the Quinnimont and Kanawha (both of Pottsville age), our paleobotanical knowledge is based predominantly on material from this state. The floras of the Conemaugh have had but little study, and their differentiation from those of the Monongahela, on the one hand, or from those of the Allegheny on the other, is therefore at present very incomplete. The composition and characteristics of the plant life of the Monongabela also are but little understood, though it is known that the floras contain much that is present in, though not peculiar to, the Dunkard (basal Permian). The remains of a meager flora occurring near the top of the Greenbrier limestone in West Virginia are wholly unstudied and unrecorded. Consequently they do not appear in the list. Further study will greatly enlarge a number of the lists from formations containing large and interesting floras that are as yet comparatively unstudied.

Many of the names quoted in the accompaningaccompanying [sic] lists are based