I was not aware there were many fossils in the New Albany Shale layer and think of it as a time in the Middle Devonian period when the Louisville area was a dead water zone. It is thought that trees/plants drifted into this area from what is now Pennsylvania and New York.
I have found a number of papers on plants in the New Albany Shale layer when researching a question about the labeling of a plant fossil on the KYANA Geological Society website a while back.
The Structure and Classification of Four Plants From the New Albany Shale by J.H. Hoskins and A.T. Cross from American Midland Naturalist - November 1951. It says that four genera found in the black shales of the east central United States are: Callixylon, Asteroxylon, Protolepidodendron, and Reimannia.
Studies of New Albany Shale Plants. I. Stenokoleos Simplex Comb. by Charles B. Beck from American Journal of Botany - February 1960.
Studies of New Albany Shale. II. Callixylon Arnoldii by Charles B. Beck from Brittonia - October 15, 1962.
Studies of New Albany Shale. III. Chapelia Campbellii by Charles B. Beck from American Journal of Botany - September 1967.
Note splotches on some of the fossils is just water that has not yet evaporated after the rocks were cleaned. The pictures are of just two rocks each with fossil remains.
