Scientia Sinica

ON SOME SPECIMENS OF LEPIDODENDROPSIS HIRMERI LUTZ FROM THE WUTUNG SERIES OF KIANGSU*

H.C, Sze ( #4Tfe)

(Institute of Palzontology, Academia Sinica)

The flora of the Wutung Series in Eastern China was held by Gothan and Sze!) to be the oldest Lower Carboniferous. According to Sze"), this series is equivalent more or less in age to the Etroeungtian in Europe. In view of the fact that the fossil plants of the Lower Carboniferous in middle Europe belong mostly to the Viséan and that the plant beds of the Etroeungtian and Tournaisian in Europe contain only very few plantremains, I proposed in 1943"! the name Wutungian, which represents in China a formation of continental sedimentation with a special flora in the oldest Lower Carboniferous time. A complete list of the flora found from this formation was given in a paper published in 1943"), Particular interest in the subject was aroused by Mr. K. P’an’s recent finding of several well preserved and almost complete specimens of the Devonian fishes of the Bothriolepis type from the Wutung Series in Lungt’an, some 20 km southeast of Nanking. The evidence of fossil faunas especially in China has often been and will always be considered as carrying much more weight than that of fossil Horas. Many geologists are thus inclined to believe that the age of the Wutung Series may Tepresent the passage from the Devonian to the Carboniferous. Some palzozoologists and geologists, on the other hand, persist in regarding the Wutung Series as Devonian, chiefly because of the discovery of the important evidence of fossil fishes. The relation of the evidence of the fossil fishes and fossil plants in the Wutung Series becomes now a most fascinating problem. If I am right in supposing that the Wutungian of China is more or less equivalent to the Etroeungtian of Europe, the discrepancies between the chronological testimony of fossil fishes and fossil plants of the Wutung Series would be materially lessened, since the European Etroeungtian has been placed to the uppermost Devonian by many Carbon-geologists'* “! in the Heerlen Congresses (1927, 1935, 1951) based on the evidence of the Goniatites. The important point is that the Wutung Series consists of a flora with Sublepidodendron

*First published in Chinese in 4c1g Paleontologica Sinica, Vol. 1V, No. 1, pp. 45—52, 1956.

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