i I Rew Pork State College of Agriculture At Cornell University Sthaca, M2. DB. Library Cornell University Library QE 936.W zoic floras | | | | | i iil 03 o il 31 26 itl 924 003 206 285 am | DEPARTAEE OF THE - INTERIOR-U. g, qrotodmoat SURVEY CHARLES De “WALCOTT, prricror. ‘ “STATUS a ” on THE ate > Le ’ MESOZOIC: FLORAS OF THE UNITED. STATES: Fiesr Paper: THE OLDER MESOZOIC © / . BY LES Tt E R F, ow A R D writs THE COLLABORATION oF es We. M, FONTATNE, ATREUS WANNER, -AND F. H. ENOWLION dix é ey 3 ORXPRACE 1 FROM, THE Sp WENTIET ANNUAL xeport oF THE ‘SURVEY, 1996-90 BF De, ‘PART oe EOLOGY. AND ee Z, WASHINGTON: 7 (GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE —: oo ‘wes ft ah STATUS OF THE MESOZOIC FLORAS OF 7 THE UNITED STATES First Paper: THE OLDER MESOZOIC LESTER F. WARD WITH THE COLLABORATION OF WM. M. FONTAINE, ATREUS WANNER, AND F, H. KNOWLTON 21 CONTENTS. Page. Introductory remarks \: ejiecnets ccancatee su sageiaw cues 3 eenleaesen's aaeaeeie es 217 Part... LhetPriassic flora oni 02 ete ha eee Slee cutesinwican se aecewsiee 218 The Connecticut Valley area ..........2 20.220 eee eee eee eee eee 222 The Hudson-Potomac area .......-.-.------- 222 e eee eee eee eee eee ee 229 Triassic plants from New Jersey..-...--.-.------------------------ 229 Triassic plants from Pennsylvania .......-..----------------+--+--+ 231 Triassic flora of York County, Pennsylvania, by Atreus Wanner and Wm. M. Fontaine ..-....-----.------------------------ 233 Triassic plants from Maryland.....-........----------------------- 255 The Virginia area _..._......-- de ha ce Sa arcpe Palette ah Ba ep ce -- 257 The North Carolinaared:. seins Goes teissicie ss ce ciewidabies pe teienbedien 6 266 Description of a small collection of fossil wood from the Triassic area of North Carolina, by F. H. Knowlton...-........---.----------- 272 The Emmons collectionizoccss we nteinon® ss teeta ese tex 526, 528 Illustration of the genus Cycadella._..-.....-------- 530 Gyéadella Reedil jc ccccinsraccecde bee eeehiee S208 5382-542 Cycadella Beecheriana._........-----------.------- 544,546 Cycadella wyomingensis.._......-..------.-------- 548-570 Cycadella Knowltoniana.........-.---------------- 572-580 Cycadella compressa .....--..------------+---+-++--- 582, 584 Cycadella jurassica......------------++--+-++------- 586-614 Cycadella nodosa.....-.-.----------+--+- sees eens 616-634 Cycadella cirrata....--...--.-.-----------+--++-+-- 636-648 Cycadella exogena ......---------------------+----- 650-664 Cycadella ramentosa .......-..-------------------- 666-678 216 Puates CXLV-CXLVH. CXLVIULCLILL. CLIV. CLV-CLVII. CLVIII-CLXI. CLXIL. CLXII, CLXIV. CLXV-CLXIX. CLXX, CLXXI. CIA NT-CLE NVI. CLXXVIU. OUXTX, ILLUSTRATIONS. Pages, Cycadella ferruginea ....--..-.----------------- 680-684 Cycadella contracta ..-...--..-2------+-+2--+--- 686-696 Cycadella gravis .......--2----- 2-22-2222 ee eee 698 Cycadella verrucosa.....-...--------0-- eee eee 700-704 Cy CAM ella jC] UNA arsciecicsem newisnseieere whereas 706-712 Gycadélla con dinna w-2occes1 subeucoseceeesr ees _ Ti4 Cycadella crepidaria ............-....2----2---- 716, 718 Cycadella gelida_./.....--.-.----.------------- 720-728 Cycadella carbonensis..........-..-.----------- 730, 732 Cy ead ella. SMP HE on carceewwiccnteemeee eens 734-744 Araucarioxylon? obscurum.._...-..---..------- 746 Pinoxylon dacotense..--......-..22---2---0--2- 748 STATUS OF MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. FIRST PAPER: THE OLDER MESOZOIC. By Lester F. Warp. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. It is proposed in this paper to give a succinct account of the prog- ress thus far made in the direction of developing the Mesozoic floras of the United States. The treatment will be primarily in the ascend- ing geological order, secondarily in such geographical order as seems most natural, and finally in the chronological order of discovery. The aim will be to enumerate for the several formations, geographical areas, and special localities the fossil plants that have been found, collected, and reported upon, and to give a somewhat complete bibli- ography of the work accomplished in strictly paleobotanical lines, with special reference to correlation, but without any attempt to treat the subject from the stratigraphical or general geological standpoint, since this latter task would be much too large, and has, moreover, to con- siderable extent, been done already by numerous writers. The strati- graphical results thus arrived at will be simply accepted, and the horizons will be arranged with reference to them. There will be no attempt to republish what has already appeared, and the new matter will consist altogether of additional results here published for the first time. A special feature will be the enumeration of discoveries made and of materials collected and in hand, either now in process of elabo- ration or to be taken up as early as possible for future publication. It is believed that such a paper will be useful not only as showing the work that has been done, the results of which are now scattered through a great number of volumes of the most diverse character, and are difficult to find, but also as indicating the direction and prospects of future work along the same lines. The paper naturally falls under three general heads, based on the general geological nomenclature of the Mesozoic—Triassic, Jurassic,. and Cretaceous—which, notwithstanding the difficulty in making the , on 218 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. American beds conform in all respects with the older classification, still proves a convenient and more or less satisfactory basis of sub- division. These general heads may be made to designate the three parts, I, IJ, and III, of the paper, and each of the parts may then be conveniently further subdivided into lesser heads dealing with the smaller geological groups or formations, designated for the most part by special names derived from localities where each is best exposed. In view of the considerable magnitude which such a memoir is found to assume, and especially of the impossibility of having all the illustra- tions prepared in time to be embodied in the Twentieth Annual Report of the Survey, it has been necessary to make a more general subdivision of it into two papers, one on the Older Mesozoic (Parts I and II), and the other on the Younger Mesozoic, or Cretaceous, and to confine the present paper to the former of these subdivisions, the matter for which is ready, leaving the other subdivision to form the subject of a second paper to be published in a subsequent report. PART I. THE TRIASSIC FLORA. There are certain beds which are generally admitted to belong to the great series called Triassic in all parts of the world, and the fossil plants only help to confirm the conclusions on this point which have been drawn from stratigraphical considerations and from other forms of life. It so happens, however, that the paleobotanical record is here very incomplete, and there is no adequate evidence that any plant remains have thus far been found in any but the uppermost portion of the Triassic series. It is true that Mr. Benjamin Smith Lyman, of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, argues for a great thickness of the Triassic beds in Bucks and Montgomery counties, Pennsylvania,’ claiming that they extend into the Permian and contain the remains of Calamites and Lepidodendron, but no one else finds the same conditions, and Mr. Henry B. Kimmel, after an exhaustive study of these beds in the adjacent State of New Jersey, with Mr. Smith’s results before -him, finds reasons for doubting his conclusions, and reduces the thickness from 27,000 to 12,000 or 15,000 feet by the discovery of faults.’ With regard to the fossil plants, Mr. Lyman admits that the sup- posed Calamites was never submitted to a competent specialist, and it is altogether probable that it represents the stem of a large Equisetum, as, for example, 4. Fogersi? (Bunb.) Schimp. It must be remem- 1Proc. Am. Philos. Soc., Vol. XX XIII, pp. 5-10; 192-215; Pennsylvania State Geological Survey Sum- mary, Final Report, Vol III, Pt. II, pp. 2689-2638. 2 Annual Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey for 1897, p. 138. WARD.] THE TRIASSIC FLORA. 219 bered that Bunbury’ in 1851, when he named that species, and all before that date, back to Brongniart in 1828, who first figured it,? regarded it as a Calamites. For the existence of Lepidodendron there would seem to be good authority; not, however, for its occurrence in the thick deposits of Pennsylvania, but in the New Jersey beds, in quarries of Newark and Belleville; a photograph of a specimen from which was sent to Professor Lesquereux by Professor Cook, State geologist of New Jersey. In his report Professor Lesquereux says: The photographs are sufficient, if not for specific determination at least for posi- tive reference of the specimens to Lepidodendron. Even. I should say that the specimens represent L. Veltheimianum Presl, as distinctly as a specific representation can be made upon a decorticated trunk of Lepidodendron. L. Veltheimianum isa leading species of the Old Red Sandstone found here, as in Europe, from the Sub- carboniferous Measures down to the Devonian, while until now we do not have any remains of Lepidodendron of any kind from the Upper Coal Measures (Permo-Car- boniferous), or from higher up than the Pittsburg coal. L. Veltheimianum is recorded only once from the true Coal Measures; this by Eich- wald, from the Carboniferous sandstone of Russia. But European authors, among others Goeppert, doubt the identity of the Russian species with L. Veltheimianum, which is, moreover, extremely variable, and has been described already under about thirty different names.® While the authority in this case is not to be questioned, there is cer- tainly room for doubt as to whether so important a conclusion drawn from a photograph of a decorticated specimen can be regarded as final. After reading Mr. Lyman’s articles I wrote to Professor Fontaine under date of May 4, 1894, as follows: Have you seen Mr. Lyman’s articles in the Proceedings of the American Philo- sophical Society (Vol. XX XIII, January, 1894, No. 144, pp. 5-10)? I wish you could see the spedtmen of so-called Lepidodendron from the Newark brownstone, to see whether you agree with Lesquereux. It is just possible that there may be points at which the change from the brown sandstone to the underlying Carboniferous is hot easily distinguished, and they may have got down into the Carboniferous. The whole matter ought surely to be looked into. To this Professor Fontaine replied under date of May 12, 1894, as follows: I had seen a notice of Lyman’s remarks on the Newark beds, but not the articles. Since you called my attention to them I have carefully read them. I think that he makes out a case strong enough to call for a careful revision of all that is known of the flora ofthese strata. It is possible, but I do not think probable, that the Devo- nian may be reached in some of the Newark strata. I think that the supposed Lepi- dodendron is the plant that I have figured in Monograph VI, pl. xlviii, fig. Bhs I supposed to be the stem of a cycad (see p. 91 of monograph) like Williamson sstem of Zamia gigas. This may be really a coniferous stem and belong to the conifer that bore the cones depicted on pls. xlyii and xlyili. These are possibly kin to Abies and the ancestral forms of the Abietites of the Potomac. This is strikingly 1Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, Vol. VII, 1851, p. 190. ae 2Histoire des Végétaux Fossiles, Vol. I, p. 125, Pl, XVI, fig. 1. ; : - ; ae om of New Jersey, Annual Report of the State Geologist for the year 1879, Tretton, 1879, pp. 26-27. 220 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. like Lepidodendron, but evan if it be such the absence of all other Paleozoic plants and the fact that the accompanying flora is wholly Mesozoic would simply indicate that Lepidodendron survives into the Mesozoic. It is noteworthy, with reference to what Lesquereux says, that this Richmond coal-field plant is more like L. Veltheimi- anum than any other of that genus. Ido not know what Mr. Lyman’s authority is for the statement that the Newark beds are 9,000 feet below the Milford strata, or for the great thickness he gives for the Pennsylvania Trias, 27,000 feet. I have not seen any publication indicating that thickness. Do you know of such? Mr. Lyman questions my rejection of Lepidodendron from the Mesozoic flora. I do not see that that, if correct, helps his contention, which is that the fossils may be Lepidodendron, and therefore the beds may be Paleozoic. If we grant that these plants are Lepi- dodendron, all that’can be deduced is that this genus lived in the Mesozoic, for the supposed Lepidodendron of North Carolina and Virginia is accompanied by an abundance of well-marked Mesozoic plants; otherwise we must conclude that the North Carolina and Virginia bedsare Paleozoic. Surely he would not maintain that. 1 In all this the question has not been whether we have in these few doubtful remains representatives of the flora of the lowest Triassic beds corresponding to the Variegated Sandstone or Vosgian and the Muschelkalk, but whether they are Mesozoic or Paleozoic. Professor Fontaine seems to have sufficiently answered this question, and all agree to the absence thus far of the characteristic Lower Triassic forms, such as Athophyllum, Voltzia, Albertia, and Yuccites. With regard to the alleged Trias of Prince Edward Island,” it pre- sents a question singularly similar to the one just considered, since none of the fossil plants at least are claimed to represent the Lower Trias, while two of them are decidedly Paleozoic in their affinities. I therefore fully indorse all that Dr. Knowlton has said® with regard to them. JI had myself raised the question whether the Oycadeoidea abequidensis may not represent a cone of some coniferous tree. It is very small for a cycadean trunk, though this alone would not negative such a reference. Sir William Dawson’s fig. 29, which is about natural size, does not bring out cycadean characters, and the supposed scars of leaves and buds represented enlarged in figs. 29a and 29 do not help support his view. He does not explain why he places the small end down and describes it as ‘‘ obovate” instead of reversing it and treating it as originally conical, but if the side of the scars toward the small end are, as represented, more pronounced than that toward the large end, this would seem to justify that position. A photograph, slightly enlarged, which Sir William was so good as to send me, and which bears enlargement with a lens much better than the engraving, still fails to answer the question of orientation, but it must be admitted 1At the time this letter was written the negotiations described below (pp. 274-276) relative to the then recently discovered Emmons’s collection were going on, and it will be observed that Professor Fontaine, after examining the specimens themselves, refers the supposed Lepidodendron to Zamios- trobus virginiensis, virtually confirming his previous conclusion derived from an examination of the figures alone. 2Report on the Geological Structure and Mineral Resources of Prince Edward Island, by J. W. Dawson, assisted by B. J. Harrington; Montreal, 1871; 51 pp., 3 plates. See pp. 13-22, 45, 46, pl. iii. 3In the Newark system, by I. C. Russell: Bull. U. 8. Geol. Survey No. 85, 1892, p. 29. WARD,] THE TRIASSIO FLORA. 221 that some of the supposed buds when thus enlarged simulate very closely the reproductive organs of certain Cretaceous cycadean trunks. This treatment further shows that the scars or scales point toward the large end, which would be singular for a cone, whatever the condi- tions of compression to which it might have been subjected. It would seem, therefore, that the whole question must be left for the present in abeyance, but there is at least no evidence of these beds representing the early Trias.' It will therefore be necessary to treat the American Trias as a geo- logical unit, and to confine the classification to the several geographical areas in which its flora has been developed. There is no fact more commonly remarked by. paleontologists than that of the defectiveness of the geological record in Mesozoic time, especially as regards fossil plants. Of the three divisions or systems of the Mesozoic, the defectiveness of this record is most apparent in the earliest or lowest, viz, the Trias. In Europe the lower member of the Trias, viz, the Buntersandstein, contains fossil plants at some points, notably in Alsatia, on the slopes of the Vosges, and in the vicinity of Strasburg. The second or middle member, viz, the -Muschelkalk, is also represented by a few plant remains at Recoaro, in Italy, and perhaps at a few other points. The last member, viz, the Keuper, is very well represented at many different localities on the Continent. The Triassic fossil plants are most numerous of all in the extreme upper member or transition beds, viz, the Rhetic, espe- cially in the Kingdom of Bavaria, province of Franconia, near Baireuth, and in South Sweden (Scania). The attempt to correlate the Trias of America with any other of these three series of the European Trias has thus far been more or less unsuccessful, but it is remarkable that all the fossil plants that have ever been discovered in American strata within the proper limits of the Trias not only appear to belong to nearly the same horizon, but also have their nearest affinities with those found in the very upper- most of the four different members which have been enumerated. It is quite immaterial whether we denominate this member the upper Keuper or call it the Rhetic. The principal plant-bearing deposits which have been assigned to the Trias in America occur in the Connecticut Valley, in the vicinity. of Richmond, Virginia, and in North Carolina. In the West there are large tracts of country which have been assigned to the Trias and which probably belong to that system, and many eminent geologists, includ- ing Dr. J. S. Newberry, have been disposed to identify this Western formation with that of the eastern part of the country. These deposits are most extensive in New Mexico and Arizona, but are perhaps to be found in Indian Territory and adjacent parts of Texas. They also 1gee Dana, Manual of Geology, 4th ed., 1895, p. 741. 222 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. extend into Utah, Nevada, and Colorado. The beds near Taylors- ville, California, will receive separate treatment. Of these several deposits the one that has attracted the largest share of attention is the so-called Richmond coal field in Virginia, which has been the subject of a valuable contribution by Prof. William M. Fon- taine, published in 1883 as Monograph VI of the United States Geo- logical Survey. Next in importance is the region in the State of North Carolina which was early investigated by Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, who published the results primarily in his report on the Geology of North Caro- lina as State geologist, and finally embodied them in his American Geology, Part VI. _ A few fossil plants were long ago described and figured by Dr. Edward Hitchcock in his report on the geology of Massachusetts, and in several papers in the American Journal of Science. Later, Dr. J. Ss. Newberry elaborated certain material in his hands at the School of Mines, Columbia College, New York, and published the same in con- nection with the fossil fishes of the Connecticut Valley in a monograph of the Geological Survey.!| This work is of special value to us in the consideration of the question of correlation of the various Triassic beds, since Dr. Newberry took much interest in this question and made’ careful comparisons with all the other plant remains as well as the animal remains of the Triax: His conclusions, therefore, upon this question are of the highest importance and are quite freely expressed. The material from the Western beds has. consisted chiefly of fossil wood, of which vast quantities exist, strewn over the plains of Arizona and New Mexico, and which has been repeatedly reported upon and graphically described by many writers. But until recently very little else has been known from that region. The work upon which we must rely for most of our information with regard to that region, aside from the fossil wood, is that known as the report of the Macomb Exploring Expedition, in which Dr. J. S. Newberry, as naturalist of that expe- dition, describes and figures a considerable number of Triassic fossil plants; but most of the plants dealt with in this report come from Mexico and not from any part of the United States. Better to understand the history of the work done on the fossil plants of the American Trias, we will now undertake a brief review of the subject. THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY AREA. Beginning with the most northern of the Eastern deposits, viz, that of the Connecticut Valley, we find that the earliest mention made of fossil: plants was that by Dr. Edward Hitchcock, in the American 1 Fossil fishes and fossil plants of the Triassic rocks of New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley, by John §. Newberry: Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, Vol. XIV, Washington, 1888. warD.] THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY AREA. 223 Journal of Science for 1823, in an extended article read before the American Geological Society on September 11, 1822.1 Neither of the two objects found is specifically determinable, the first being some sort of cane or grass, the other a coniferous branch, possibly Palissya or Voltzia. The first was found one-half mile south of Newgate Prison, and the second at Sunderland, in Massachusetts. The first mention made of the petrified tree found in the Southbury area of the Connecticut Trias, about which so much has been: said, was a paragraph devoted to it by Dr. Hitchcock in his Miscellaneous Notices of Mineral Localities, with Geological Remarks, in 1828,” deseribing a fragment from it obtained by Dr. Smith of Southbury, broken off by a man who had mistaken it for a recent stump and ruined his ax upon it. In his first Geological Report of Massachusetts, published in 1833,° and accompanied by an atlas of 18 plates, Dr. Hitchcock made passing mention on pages 232-234 of vegetable remains in the Trias and fig- ured a few obscure objects on pl. xiii of the atlas. He supposed that he had found a species of Calamites agreeing closely with C. arenaceus of Brongniart, and refers to the mention by De la Beche, in his Man- ual of Geology, of the discovery of Lycopodites Sillamanni at ‘*‘ Hadley, Connecticut,” which he believes to have meant South Hadley, Massa- chusetts. Speaking of the coniferous plant figured in the American Journal, already referred to, he concludes that it is probably a Voltzia related to V. brevifolia. The fucoid there found he was disposed to regard as Fucoides Brongniartii; but, as we shall see later, he after- wards gave this plant another name. It was found in Deerfield and Greenfield, and was referred to Dr. Morton for determination. Dr: Hitchcock also here again calls attention to the fossil trunk of a tree discovered at Southbury, Connecticut. The Report on the Geological Survey of Connecticut, by Charles Upham Shepard,’ 1837, refers to the occurrence of vegetable remains in the red sandstone at Middletown and in the cupriferous sandstone- slate at Enfield Falls, in Suffield, and at Southington and Durham. In his second Geological Report of Massachusetts’ Hitchcock devotes nine pages (pp. 450-458) to the subject of fossil plants in the Trias or New Red Sandstone,.as he calls it. Some of these are of doubtful vegetable nature; others that he figures are probably fucoids, which can scarcely be determined fronrhis description. The one men- 1A sketch of the geology, mineralogy, and scenery of the regions contiguous to the River Connec- ‘tieut, with a geological map and drawings of organic’ remains, and occasional botanical notices, Part I, by Edward Hitchcock: Am. Jour. Sci., Ist series, Vol. VI, 1823, pp. 1-86. For reference to fossil plants see p. 80, pl. ix, figs. 4, 5. 2Am. Jour. Sci., Ist series, Vol. XIV, 1828, p. 298, 3 Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts, by Edward Hitche ‘ock, Amherst, 1833. 4New Haven, 1837, pp. 1-188, 8°. See pp. 62, 166. 5 Final Report on the Geology ot Massachusetts, Vol. II, Northampton, 1841. 224 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. tioned in the previous report he now calls /ucovdes Shepardi, and he distinguishes another as F. connecticutensis. These plant impressions are for the most part figured in the text; but in addition he gives one plate (which in the text he refers to aspl. 29, but which bears the num- ber 28) on which occur four figures of various small objects, none of which are generically determinable, and only one can be with certainty referred to the vegetable kingdom. viz, fig. 2, which probably repre- sents a Palissya. The same author read a paper before the Association of Geologists and Naturalists in 1842, in which he described a number of additional plant forms from this same region." In this paper Dr. Hitchcock gives an account of the fossil tree already mentioned, which was found at Southbury, the specimens of which he had sent to Professor Bailey at West Point, whose language he quotes in this paper and whose figures he also gives on the plate. Professor Bailey had made three sections, one of which was longitudinal and sufficiently radial to show conclusively that the wood of this tree was coniferous, and he so pronounced it. Dr. Hitchcock also here figures a specimen found in the dark-gray sandstone of Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts, which he says belongs to the genus Tzniopteris, and which he compares with 7. vttata Brongn., as figured in Bronn’s Lethea Geognostica. » The figure (fig. 2) of this specimen is so very poor that no one would suspect it of being a fern, but inasmuch as he states that the specimen closely resembles Zwniopteris vittata we can interpret the figure with some satisfaction, and there would scarcely seem to be any doubt that this specimen actually represented a Teeni- opteris or Macroteniopteris. This is interesting in view of the fact that Dr. Newberry, in his work already quoted,” speaking of Zwni- opteris magnifolia of Rogers, says that ‘‘this has not yet been found anywhere in the North, nor has any other similar fern been met with there,” showing that Dr. Newberry had probably overlooked this paper by Dr. Hitchcock. The other three figures represent a conifer allied to Voltzia or perhaps belonging to Palissya, but too poorly pre- served and too badly figured to be determinable. , In 1847 Dr. Benjamin Silliman gave an account’ of two fossil trees, one of them with branches, found in place in the red sandstone in the town of Bristol, Connecticut. A clear picture of the quarry with the trees exposed is given on page 117, and his description is rather full and satisfactory. As in the case of the Southbury specimens, a report was secured from Prof. J. W. Builey on the internal structure, with the same result. that it indicated the coniferous character of these remains. 1 Description of several species of fossil plants from the New Red Sandstone Formation of Con- necticut and Massachusetts, by Edward Hitchcock: Report of the first, second, and third meetings of the Phil. Assoc. of Am. Geologists and Naturalists, 1840-1842, Boston, 1848, pp. 294-296, pl. xiii. 2Mon. U.S. Geol. Survey, Vol. XIV, 1888, p. 12. 3 Am. Jour. Sci., 2d series, Vol. IV, 1847, pp. 116-118 (fig. on p. 117). WaRD,] THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY AREA. 225 4 At the close of the paper Dr. Silliman mentions the fact that ‘“ large stems of reedlike plants are found in the beds which furnish the fish, at Middlefield, in the same State.” In the same volume! Dr. Hitchcock noted the occurrence in bowl- ders of porphyritic trap at Amherst of “‘a vegetable stem from 1 to 3 inches in diameter, scarcely flattened.” Several years later (1855), in an article contributed to the American Journal of Science,” Dr. E. Hitchcock, jr., describes another fern, which he calls Clathropteris rectiusculus, found in the sandstone of Mount Tom, in Easthampton, Massachusetts. From the figures on page 24 Professor Fontaine, in his Older Mesozoic Flora,’ identifies this with Clathropteris platyphylla (Gopp.) Brongn. There is some further mention of this plant by the elder Hitchcock in 1861.‘ In his paper Dr. Hitchcock, jr., speaks of other specimens of what he supposed to be Clathropteris in the cabinet of Amherst College, taken from the quarry of Roswell Field, in Gill, Massachusetts. These specimens are not figured, but from the description Dr. Hitchcock gives of them Professor Fontaine concludes that they can hardly representa Clathrop- teris, and are probably Dictyophyllum or Camptopteris. In a paper by Dr. James Deane on the Sandstone Fossils of Con- necticut River (Turners Falls, Massachusetts), published in the Journal of the American Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- phia for November, 1856,° he figured one specimen (pl. xix, fig. a) which was thought by Professor Gray to be the ‘‘leaf scars of some plant like a tree fern,” and which Professor Dana could refer ‘to nothing but a plant, the prominences being the traces of leaves, prob- ably coniferous;” but he admitted it was ‘‘not like any known conif- erous plant, ancient or modern” (see p. 177). Dr. Deane, however, did not share these opinions, and says of this specimen: I think in the present state of science it is impossible to explain the origin of this elegant fossil. If the accumulated bodies that constitute the various lines of impres- sions be not due to the deciduous fronds of plants, they must be taken for the der- inoid protuberances of some animal. There is not the slightest evidence of a compressed stem of a coniferous or other plant, which should certainly be the case in so perfect a specimen; and, moreover, upon the superior or superincumbent stratum the imprint is reversed; it is a cast, and this, it appears to me, is conclusive evidence against a vegetable origin. In his Ichnology of New England* Dr. Edward Hitchcock speaks; on page 6, of the fern (Clathropteris rectiusculus) described by Dr. 'Loc., cit., p. 202. . : 2 Description of a new speciey of Clathropteris, discovered in the Connecticut Valley sandstone, by Dr. E. Hitchcock, jr.: Am. Jour. Sci., 2d series, Vol. XX, 1855, pp. 22-25. 8Mon. U.S. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, 1883, p. 57. 4Proc. Am. Assoc. Ady. Sci., Vol. XIV, pp. 158-159. 52d series, Vol. III, pp. 173-178, pl. xviii-xx. ; ; 6Ichnology of New England: A Report on the Sandstone of the Connecticut Valley, made to the Government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by Edward Hitchcock; Boston, 1858, 4°. See pp. 6, 8, pl. v, fig. 1; pl. vii, figs. 1 and 2. 20 GEOL, PT 2 15 226 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. Edward Hitchcock, jr., mentioned above, and gives a figure of the whole frond (pl. v, fig. 1), showing the radiating structure, and another (pl. vii, fig. 1) of a small segment more enlarged than that previously published. In the same work (p. 8) he mentions a cone found in the quarries of Mr. Roswell Field at Turners Falls, which he thought similar to some described in Europe from the Wealden. A sketch of this cone and of some coniferous twigs from the same locality, made by Mr. F. A. Lydston, is introduced on pl. vii (fig. 2). Professor Fontaine, in a letter dated February 7, 1891, expresses the opinion that the twigs here figured belong to Cheirolepis Muensteri, and that the cone may have been that of a species of Palissya of the type of P. aptera Schenk. From the date of the Ichnology of New England there seem to have been nearly thirty years during which no additional paleobo- tanical discoveries were made in the Connecticut Valley. In 1885 Mr. H. H. Hendrick, a member of the Meriden Scientific Association, found in the Durham shales the fruit of a cycadean plant, a brief notice of which was published by the Rev. J. H. Chapin, of Meriden, president of the association, in the proceedings for that year.’ The specimen was sent to Dr. J. S. Newberry, who described and figured it in his Fossil Fishes and Fossil Plants (p. 92, pl. xxiv, fig. 4) under the name of Cycadinocarpus Chapini. Mr. Chapin recorded this fact in a later volume’ of the same series in-which the original announcement was made. On March 28, 1887, Dr. Newberry presented to the New York Academy of Sciences a very brief account of the results at which he had arrived in his study of the paleontology of the Triassic beds. An abstract of this paper appeared the same year.’ It contains a list of the plants that had been obtained from both the New Jersey and the New England beds, all of which were fully treated in the work on which he was then engaged. . The above enumeration brings the record of paleobotanical discovery in the Trias of the Connecticut Valley and New England areas down ‘to the date of Dr. Newberry’s Monograph of the Fossil Fishes and Fossil Plants, to which reference has already been made (supra, p. 222). In this he gives a sketch of the Triassic, and includes 17 species of fossil plants. They were collected at Sunderland, Massachusetts, at Dur- ham and Middletown, Connecticut, and at Newark and Milford, New Jersey, and are treated in a thorough and systematic way, being illus- trated in six plates with very excellent figures. Through this work we are therefore at length placed in possession of a considerable body 1Proceedings and Transactions of the Scientific Association, Meriden, Connecticut, 1885-86, Vol. II, Meriden, 1887, p. 29. 2Vol. IV, Meriden, 1891, p. 62. 8The fauna and flora of the Trias of New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley: Trans. N. Y. Acad. Sci., Vol. VI, 1886-87, pp. 124-128. WARD.] THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY AREA. 227 of facts relating to the fossil flora of the northern extension of the American Trias. My own investigations in this area began in the year 1890. During the month of August of that year Professor Fontaine and myself visited the beds in the vicinity of New Haven and most of the localities above mentioned in Connecticut and Massachusetts, especially those in the Connecticut Valley as far as Turners Falls and Gill, Massa- chusetts. Our object was, first, to see the collections at Yale Uni- versity, at the Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and at Amherst and Turners Falls, Massachusetts, and to examine the older material that had been collected as above stated and all the fossil plants from the Trias deposited in these collections; secondly, to examine, so far as possible, the beds themselves from which fossil plants have been taken, and to note their mode of occurrence in the rocks. Of recent collectors in this section by far the most successful has been Mr. 8. Ward Loper, of Middletown. Mr. Loper was in the field at the time of our visit, and we met him at Tariffville, Connecticut, at which place he had discovered a plant-bearing locality. There being no true coal mines in the Connecticut Valley Trias, the mode of occur- rence of the fossil plants is, of course, somewhat different from that in. Virginia. It is equally true here, as in Virginia, that fossil plants are not found in the red sandstone, but are confined to the dark shales, and those in the Connecticut Valley occur for the most part in close connection with the trap ridges of that region. They are usually found at the margin of the shales near their contact with the trap. The locality at Tariffville was in close contact with one of the secondary trap ridges located on the eastern side of the main ridge, which, in the general trend of these ridges, places it higher in the Trias, _ geologically speaking, or, as Professor Davis expresses it, “* posterior.” From what Mr. Loper told us, and from numerous observations upon localities from which fossil plants have been previously reported, it would seem that they usually occur in this position. A fairly good specimen of Ctenophyllum Braunianum angustum was found during our visit to this locality, and Mr. Loper had already sent considerable material of this character to Professor Davis, which subsequently found its way into the general collection at Washington. ; Besides examining the Portland quarries and those of Turners Falls and Gill, Massachusetts, where no vegetable remains other than those presently to be named occur, we visited several places in Connecticut where Mr. Loper had obtained fossil plants, especially at Westfield and Highlands. In the Portland-quarries there occur large logs clearly representing Triassic trees embedded in the red sandstone and now thoroughly silicified; but besides these and the fine specimens of Dendrophycus which occur ‘there, nothing of a vegetable nature seems to have been found. At Turners Falls careful investigation was 228 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. made in the red shales bearing the tracks so celebrated in that locality, and under the guidance of Mr. T. M. Stoughton we visited all the impor- tant places from which specimens of interest had been taken. We saw in these beds nothing that could be called vegetable, and it seems very doubtful whether any plants either grew or were ever transported by any agency into the riparian clays in which the Brontotheria and other saurians left their footprints in such profusion. Special attention was paid on this excursion to the form called Den- drophycus triassicus Newb. The original of one of the specimens fig- ured by Dr. Newberry‘ was seen at the museum of Yale University, the other? was examined at the museum of the Wesleyan University. Two other good specimens were afterwards secured at the Portland quarries by Mr. John H. Sage, of Portland, and generously donated by him to the National Museum. The finest specimens, however, are those at the Wesleyan University, also from the Portland quarry. Through the courtesy of Prof. W. N. Rice, of that institution, per- mission was obtained to have these speciniens photographed, and Mr. De Lancey W. Gill, then chief of the division of illustrations of the United States Geological Survey, kindly undertook to visit Middle- town in November and attend to the photographing of these speci- mens. Pl. XXXV, Fig. 1, represents one of these views. Although this differs considerably from the specimens figured by Dr. Newberry, coming as they do from the same quarry, it is to be supposed that they represent one species, and it, may be assumed that the specimens fig- ured by Dr. Newberry show the lower portion of the frond and did not contain those higher and finer lines so beautifully shown in the specimen at the Wesleyan University. These, therefore, will also be treated as belonging to D. triassicus. I may add that at Amherst several specimens of Dendrophycus from the Portland quarry, and, perhaps, from other points, were seen by us. They were labeled, apparently in the handwriting of Dr. Edward , Hitchcock, ‘“‘Aroid plants.” This is of special interest as showing that Dr. Hitchcock supposed them to be of vegetable origin. At the Washington meeting of the Geological Society of America in December, 1890, Prof. W. M. Davis and Mr. S. Ward Loper read a joint paper giving the results of their work in the Connecticut Valley.® The first part of this paper, by Professor Davis, is devoted to the discussion of his theory of the formation of the ‘‘trap” and the general stratigraphy of the Triassic formation in the Connecticut Valley. The second part, by Mr. Loper, treats of the fossils. It gives an enumera- tion of the fossil fishes and fossil plants found by him and their strati- graphical position, showing those that are confined to the anterior and 10p. cit., pl. xxi, fig. 2. 2Loe, cit., fig, 1. 3Two belts of fossiliferous black shale in the Triassic formation of Connecticut, by W. M. Davis and S. Ward Loper: Bull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. II, Rochester, 1891, pp. 415-430. WARD.) THE HUDSON-POTOMAO AREA. 229 to the posterior shales, and those that are common to both. This enumeration includes 13 plant forms, 11 of which are specifically named. Six of these forms are confined to the anterior and 2 to the posterior shales, while the remaining 5 are common to both situations. THE HUDSON-POTOMAC AREA. By this name may be designated the continuous belt of Triassic deposits that begins with the palisades of the Hudson and ends with the Seneca quarries on the Maryland side of the Potomac. Its position is too well known to require description. The several States may be treated in their order. No fossil plants have been reported from any locality in the Trias of New York. TRIASSIC PLANTS FROM NEW JERSEY. Prof. Henry D. Rogers, in his description of the Geology of the State of New Jersey, published in 1840, devotes a chapter (Chapter III, p. 114) to ‘the Middle Secondary Rocks,” which is the designa- tion preferred by him for this series, and of these rocks he says (pp. 115-116): The organic remains hitherto discovered are extremely few, and the evidence they afford is not sufficient to establish within near limits the era to which these stratashould be referred. They consist merely of a few rather imperfect relics of one or two species of fishes, some indistinct impressions of Fucoides, or other aquatic vege- tation, and occasional thin bands of ligniform coal, in which the fibrous structure, apparently that of the wood, is traceable. On May 6, 1869, Mr. T, A. Conrad presented a paper to the Con- chological Section of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences in which he described two species of fossil mollusks from South River, New Jersey, found in ash-colored clay near Washington, Middlesex County, which he says “‘ contains abundant stems and leaves of Cyclop- teris.” He further remarks that, although Rogers had referred this clay to the Cretaceous, he (Conrad) had ‘‘ ascertained it to be Triassic.” No one, to my knowledge, has since seen these ‘‘ Cyclopteris” leaves. Whitfield’ refers to this and remarks: It will be seen by reference to Professor Lesquereux’s list published in the ‘Report on Clays”’ (Geol. Rept. New Jersey, 1878, p. 28, 29) that Professor L. does not include this genus among those examined and reported upon. We may, therefore, consider that Mr. Conrad may have been mistaken. As the list in the Report on Clays contains only species found in the Plastic Clays, which are Cretaceous, this seems curious reasoning. There are clay pits near Washington from which I have myself col- lected beautiful impressions of fossil plants belonging to the flora of 1Am, Jour. of Conchology, Vol. [V, 1869, pp. 278-279, 2 Mon. U.S. Geol. Survey, Vol, IX, 1885, p, 22. 230 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. the Amboy Clays, but they were chiefly dicotyledonous leaves, and this clay does not seem to be the source of the specimens mentioned by Conrad. The Triassic runs under the Cretaceous a short distance west of Washington and Middletown, and it is quite possible that the clays in question may be Triassic. Mr. I. C. Russell, in 1878, found ‘‘a considerable abundance of obscure vegetable remains” at an abandoned copper mine on the western slope of the First Newark Mountain, near Plainfield.’ The discovery of fossil plants in the Newark and Belleville quarries, as recorded in the Report of the State Geologist for 1879, has already been referred to (supra, p. 219). Besides the specimen of a supposed Lepidodendron, of which a photograph was sent to Professor Lesque- reux, it is added that— Another fragment has since been obtained from the same quarries by Dr. Skinner, of Belleville, and is now in our possession. It is 7 inches long, 5% inches wide, and 13 inches thick, and is as plainly marked as the first. Other and smaller specimens somewhat like the above have also been found in the quarries in Newark. If these fossils are sufficient to determine the geological age of these beds, they put it in the Upper Carboniferous, at least, which is lower than has heen heretofore claimed for it. A larger and more complete collection of such fossils must be made if possible. Vegetable impressions are found in large numbers at the quarries of Mr. Smith Clark, of Milford, but most of them are fragmentary and indistinct. Those which can be seen plainly enough for identification resemble the Equisetum and some coniferous plants. They are evidently much newer than the fossils at Newark and Belleville.? Reference may be made to a paper by Mr. Henry Carvill Lewis, published in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences for November 24, 1879, On a New Fucoidal Plant from the Trias. This plant was found at Milford and is figured in this paper. The generic determination was made by Professor Lesquereux, who con- sidered it a new species Bt Paleophycus, and Mr. Lewis called it P. lemactformis. In the Report of the State Geologist of New J ersey: for 1885, page 95, it is stated that Prof. T. C. Porter had obtained specimens of a, conten and an Equisetum in some Triassic sandstone quarries in Hunterdon County, and also that the Clathropteris rectiusculus Hitchcock had been found at a quarry near Pluckemin, in Somerset County. Plant remains were also seen by Mr. F. Braun in a layer from 3 to 4 inches in thickness near the base of a bed of slate under the trap rock along the western bank of the Hudson River at Weehawken, Guttenburg, and neighboring localities in New Jersey, as noted by Mr. Gratacap in 1886.° 10n the occurrence of a solid hydrocarbon in the eruptive rocks of New Jersey, by I. C. Russell: Am. Jour. Sci., 3d series, Vol. XVI, August, 1878, pp. 112-114. 2Geological Survey of New Jersey, Annual Report of the State Geologist for ‘ihe year 1879, Trenton, 1879, p. 27. 3Fish remains and tracks in the Triassic rocks at Weehawken, New J. ersey, by L. P. .Gratacap: Am. Naturalist, Vol. XX, March, 1886, pp. 243-246 WARD.] TRIASSIO PLANTS FROM PENNSYLVANIA. 231 The Annual Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey for the year 1888 is largely devoted to the Triassic or red sandstone rocks, and mentions the occurrence of vegetable remains at a number of points, especially at Belleville, Little Falls, Pleasant Dale, Martins- ville, Pluckemin, Wilburtha, and Milford. ‘The above embraces the greater part of the record of paleobotan- ical discovery in the Trias of New Jersey beyand what is noted in Dr. Newberry’s monograph. TRIASSIC PLANTS FROM PENNSYLVANIA. In Pennsylvania there are several localities: at which vegetable remains have been noted. In 1856 Mr. Isaac Lea gave an account’ of some observations of his made the previous year in this vicinity, where he found in dark shales, and associated with Posidonia, saurian teeth and footprints, ‘‘impressions of plants, some of which belong to the Conifera [sic].” He continues: One of the cones was nearly 6 inches long and a ftll inch wide. These were accompanied by other plants of very obscure character, covering large portions of the surface of some of the layers. ; ; Mr. Lea also mentioned that he had observed the same red, black, and gray shales at Gwynedd, on the North Pennsylvania Railroad, where he found the same Posidonia and some of the same:obscure plants, impressions of which covered the surfaces of many of the rocks. A single specimen was obtained of a plant with long leaves somewhat resembling Noeggerathia cuneifolia Brongniart, which is from the Permian.’ More or less successful attempts must have been made to determine these plants collected by Lea, as Mr. Wheatley, in a paper read before the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences on February 20, 1861,° identified a number of them with forms described by Rogers and Emmons from Virginia and North Carolina. In his Older Mesozoic Flora, p. 116, Professor Fontaine says that, according to Professor Lesquereux, Ctenophyllum robustum (Emm.) Font. (Pterophyllum robustwm Emm.) occurs at Pheenixville, Pennsyl- vania, but he does not state where Professor Lesquereux has made this statement, and I have been unable to find any reference to it from that locality. Mr. Persifor Frazer, in his Geology of Chester County,* says that ‘‘plants are numerous at one or two horizons in the Mesozoic for- mation; referable to Equisetes (horsetails); Zamites therefore Triassic; with lignitic fragments of conifers;” but he does not state the exact locality and only leaves it to be inferred that this refers to Pennsylva- nia, as he has been describing fossils of other kinds from Pheenixville. 1Proc, Acad. Sci. Phil., Vol. VIII, April 15, 1856, pp. 77-78. 2See also Am. Jour. Sci., 2d series, Vol. XXII, 1856, pp, 123, 422. 3Remarks on the Mezozoic red sandstone of the Atlantic slope, and notice oh the disecvery of a bone bed therein, at Pheenixville, Pennsylvania, by. Charles M. Wheatley, M. A.: Am. Jour. Sci., 24 series, Vol. XXXII, July, 1861, pp. 41-48, (See p. 43.) 4Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, 1883, C+, p. 213. 232 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. ‘In the Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey for 1885, page 96, the following paragraph occurs: \ The recent discovery of a stratum full of impressions of the plant Schizoneura (Calamites) planicostata (Fontaine), in the red shales near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, by Mr. E. C. Pond, and of bivalve mollusks in those near Pheenixville, Pennsylvania, where also a deposit containing cycads is reported, taken with the finds above noted, suggests that the floraand fauna of the Triassic may be richer than hitherto supposed, and encourages further search. In the Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania for 1887 Mr. A. Wanner! describes supposed vegetable remains from the red sandstones of York County, in the vicinity of Goldsboro, and figures three specimens on pl. xiii. He regards them as repre- senting alge of a very ancient type, and proposes for this form the name Ramulus rugosus. As we shall presently see, Mr. Wanner fol- lowed up his investigations with great success. Mr. Benjamin Smith Lyman, in the several papers already cited (supra, p. 218), does not seem to have made any fresh contributions to the Triassic flora of Pennsylvania, and is content to enumerate the plants that had already been reported, and to use some of them as proofs of the Paleozoic age of certain beds previously regarded as Triassic. Mr. Frederick Ehrenfeld, of Philadelphia, a student atthe University of Pennsylvania, presented to the faculty, in 1898, a thesis? which was the result of a somewhat careful study of the Triassic beds in the vicinity of York, and virtually the same as those in which Mr. Wanner had been working, as it seems independently and without knowledge - of the work of Mr. Ehrenfeld. In this paper (pp. 10-15) Mr. Ehrenfeld enumerates half a dozen fossil plants that he had found in the Trias of that section, and had himself identified. They are: JMacroteniopteris magnifolia (Rogers) Schimp., Chetrolepis Muenstert (Schenk) Schimp., Batera Muenster- dana (Presl) Heer, Loperia simplex Newb., Mertensides bullatus (Bunb.) Font., and Zguisetum Rogersti (Bunb.) Schimp. As above remarked, Mr. Wanner continued his researches, and reached the results which are here published for the first time. Before completing his work he made two visits, in April and May, 1899, to Washington, bringing with him a part of his material, and carefully comparing it with the type specimens at the National Museum. He finally concluded to turn over his manuscript and drawings to the ‘Director of the United States Geological Survey for publication, and they were referred to me to edit and see through the press. After correspondence with Mr. Wanner it was decided to send them, as also 1The discovery of fossil tracks, alge, etc , in the Triassic of York County, Pennsylvania, by Atreus Wanner: Ann. Rept. Geol, Survey of Pennsylvania for 1887, Harrisburg, 1889, pp. 21-35: £A Study of the Igneous Rocks at York Haven and Stony Brook, Pennsylvania, and their Accom- panying Formations, by Frederick Ehrenfeld; Philadelphia, 1898; pp. 1-24, 1 plate. warp] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 233 his entire collection of fossil plants, to Professor Fontaine for thorough revision, and for a report upon them, including such notes and sugges- tions as he should deem of interest. This was done,and the work was completed about the middle of June. Thecollection proved of special interest, coming as it does from this wholly new region of the Trias, and, as might have been expected, it contained a number of new species and hitherto unknown plants, besides several not heretofore found in American deposits. In editing the manuscripts of ‘the two authors I have aimed to give the fullest possible expression to the views of both. Professor Fon- taine’s long experience and extensive researches in this group render him the recognized authority, and Mr. Wanner fully acknowledges this. His determinations are therefore accepted as final by all concerned, and will be embodied in the following systematic treatment of the plants. Mr. Wanner’s notes, however, as the collector and original investigator of the material, are of the utmost value and are also embodied as nearly in his own language as accords with Professor Fontaine’s determinations. His figures are used as finished up by himself, but to them Professor Fontaine has added a number, and in a few cases has redrawn the same specimens to emphasize his own interpretation of their characters. The joint result may be put into the following form: TRIASSIC FLORA. OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. By ATREUS WANNER and WILLIAM M. FONTAINE. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY MR. WANNER, For a number of years the writer, as opportunity permitted, has been exploring the Trias of York County. Encouraged by discov- eries made elsewhere, and impelled by an inherent love of geological study and investigation, he has collected enough material to warrant its presentation. It is a report of progress. So far as the writer knows, no one else’ has discovered or reported 1§ince the preparation of this report, but prior to its publication, and at the time of its presentation to Hon. Charles D. Walcott, I received a thesis on A Study of the Igneous Rocks of York Haven and Stony Brook, Pennsylvania, and their accompanying formations, by Frederick Ehrenfeld. On pages 10 and 11 the author names the following fossils which he found near York Haven: Macroteniopteris magnifolia. Cheirolepis Muensteri. Baiera Muensteriana. Loperia simplex = Bambusium Font. Mertensides bullatus ? Equisetum——? Mr. Ehrenfeld had no knowledge of the fact that I had previously found fossils at the York Haven locality and had in preparation the report now submitted, for which reason to him also must be given the credit of having discovered fossil plants at that locality, and the further credit of hav- ing first published his report. Mr. Ehrenfeld’s thesis was received by me on April 10, 1899, and my report was presented to Hon. Charles D. Walcott on April 15, 1899. As I understand the facts, the work of each has been unknown to and independent of that of the other. 934 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. any fossils from the Trias in this region, with a single exception. — That exception relates to Lecrone’s copper mine. About twenty years ago fossil teeth and bones were found at the bottom of a shaft sunk for the purpose of developing a supposed vein of copper. These were sent to the late Prof. E. D. Cope, of Philadelphia. The drawings were all carefully made by the writer and are intended to be exact illustrations of the specimens. No details have been supplied, though the possession of a number of other specimens in different instances clearly furnished the material from which to fill out missing parts. In the description of fossil plants the publications of William M. Fontaine have been referred to almost exclusively. Such has been the case not simply because the York County fossil plants are almost wholly included in Fontaine’s Mesozoic Flora, but because of the com- pleteness and clearness of his descriptions and illustrations. The writer is indebted to Mr. J. Heckert for valuable assistance. In this connection it is but just to acknowledge the potent influence exerted by the indefatigable energy and comprehensive and exhaust- ive methods of research of the Director of the United States Geological Survey, Hon. Charles D. Walcott, whom it was the author’s privilege to accompany in a hurried inspection of the Cambrian rocks of this section. That association served as an inspiration and stimulated the writer to still more zealously continue his researches. The author is further indebted to the Director of the United States Geological Survey and to Prof. Lester F. Ward and his associates in the National Museum for the opportunity of examining the collection of Mesozoic and related floras at Washington. Filora.—aA brief description of the geological and lithological fea- tures of the Trias in this section will be found in the reports of the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania. In York County the bedded Triassic series is largely made up of the characteristic red shales, quartz conglomerate, and sandstones, matrices not favorable to the preservation of recognizable fossil forms. Moreover, intrusive trap, in dikes and great sheets, has contributed greatly to modify and disturb the original deposits. Because of these conditions the search after impressions that can be identified is gen- erally disappointing and unproductive. A few localities yield illegi- ble impressions of plants. Occasionally there is but a dark, earthy, carbonaceous band, in a sand bank, or a thin, short seam of coal, a mere trace of irregular width, unmistakably to locate a vegetable deposit. ‘ More frequently rough casts of limbs or trunks of trees, in blocks of quartz conglomerate or sandstone of varying composition, mark the final resting place of vegetation now decomposed. A shale at the York Haven locality, yielding most of the plants warp] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 235 described, and the Little Conewago Creek shales, encouraged the hope that like deposits might be found elsewhere and still further enrich the contributions to the flora of York County. It was mainly due to that expectation, a vain one thus tar, that the writer did not publish the results of his geological explorations years ago, when he first discovered the York Haven locality. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES. Subkingdom PTERIDOPHYTA (Ferns and Fern Allies). Class FILICALES. Family FILICES (Ferns). Genus THINNFELDIA Ettingshausen. THINNFELDIA ? RETICULATA Fontaine n. sp. PL. XXTI, Figs. 1, 2. Professor Fontaine says of this plant: This is a fragment of what seems to be a new speciesof fern. It isa portion of the terminal part of an ultimate pinna. The plant does not show enough for one to make out its true character. The nerves anastomose in an irregular manner. It has the general aspect of a Thinnfeldia, and but for the anastomosis of the nerves might without hesitation be placed in that genus. As the portion is from the upper part of the frond, the pinnules probably differ from the normal ones lower down on the plant, and hence the true character may not. be disclosed. ‘There is a midnerve at the base of the pinnules, but it splits up into branches. Lateral nerves go off on eath side of it from the main rachis very obliquely. All the nerves are strong and distinct. They anastomose irregularly at long intervals and form elongate meshes. It is without doubt a new species and may be a new genus. Provisionally it may be called Thinnfeldia reticulata. Mr. Wanner makes this statement: The lobes are decurrent and the rachis winged. Fig. 2, Pl. XXII, shows the anastomosing nervation. More specimens are needed better to define it. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus CLADOPHLEBIS Brongniart. CLADOPHLEBIS RETICULATA Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXII. Professor Fontaine’s description of this species is as follows: This is a fine specimen of a new and interesting fern. Mr. Wanner’s Fig. 1 gives a good idea of the appearance of the largest specimen as seen with all accidental imperfections. I have attempted in Fig. 3 to indicate its character as seen under the lens and omitting accidental imperfections., Figs. 4,5 give the basal and terminal 236 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. portions of a pinnule magnified three diameters, in order to show the nervation, which is uncommon. I have very carefully studied it and failed to see some of the points given in Mr. Wanner’s Fig. 2. The nerves are more slender than is indicated in that figure and more closely placed. There is some indication of a toothing on the margins of the pinnules, but, as I see it, it is not so constant and regular as that indicated by Mr. Wanner. It appears to be a laceration of the margin at the termi- nation of some of the lateral nerves, that is due to accident in the splitting of the slate on which the impressions are found. The description is as follows: The midrib is strong and rigid. The pinnules are opposite or subopposite, and extremely long and slender. They are a little over 5 cm. long and only 4 mm. wide near their base. They are falcate, with the basal portion of the lamina on the upper side of the midnerve a good deal wider than that on the lower side, tending to form an ear. This upper basal portion overlaps the lower basal portion of the pinnules following next above, and all the pinnules are so closely placed as to overlap or touch at their margins. The pinnules narrow gradually to a subacute tip. In the lower portion of the pinnules there is a distinct midnerve, which is inserted on the rachis below the middle of the base of the pinnules. The midnerve disappears in the upper part of the pinnule, being split up into very long branches that fork at long intervals. These branches and the lateral branches sent off above the base are remarkable for their length and closeness of position, and for the fact that they diverge so slightly that they are almost parallel. The nerves at base on the upper side of the midnerve diverge more strongly to fill the ear. Some of the lateral basal nerves, especially on the upper side of the midnerve, go off from the rachis. Lateral nerves go off from the midnerve on each side so obliquely that they almost follow the course of that nerve. They fork at long intervals, and, as stated before, diverge so slightly that they and their branches are approximately parallel. The branches occasionally anastomose in a straggling, irregular manner, so as to form no regular and definite meshes. This plant may form the type of a new genus. It reminds one in its habit of Otozamites, especially of some of the forms of O. Bucklandii, as given by Schenk in Foss. Flor. der Grenzschichten, more especially of figs. 2, 8, pl. xxxiii, but the nervation and other points are different. The nervation, apart from the reticulation, resembles the peculiar nervation of some of the forms of Zamiopsis of the Potomac formation. It’may be compared with that of Z. insignis, Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. XV, pl. Ixv, fig. 4. It is, however, a plant quite different from any species hitherto described. But for the anastomosis it agrees well with the genus Clado- phlebis, and may be provisionally placed in that genus, with the name C. reticulata. The following is Mr. Wannevr’s account of it: No other specimen found here so completely presents the original in its entirety. The exceptionally well-preserved group of leaves, Fig. 1, Pl. X XI, showing the shape of the frond, angle of departure of the pinne and their shape, stands alone. Even the rootstalk, showing the points where the leaves were attached, as well as numer- ous slender rootlets, has left its plain impress upon the shale. A slightly mutilated basal end of a leaflet, Fig. 2, Pl. XXI, shows the auricle as well as the forking and anastomosing nerves. Locality.—_N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. warp] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 287 Genus ASTEROCARPUS Goppert. ASTEROCARPUS FALCATUS (Emmons) Fontaine. Pl. XXII, Fig. 3. 1856. Pecopteris falcatus Emm.: Geological Report of the Midland Counties of North Carolina, p. 327, pl. iv, fig. 9. : 1856. Pecopteris carolinensis Emm.: Op. cit., p. 327, pl. iv, figs 1, 2. 1857. Pecopteris falcatus Emm.: American Geology, Pt: VI, p. 100, pl. iv, fig. 9. 1857. Pecopteris falcatus variabilis Emm.: Op. vit., pl. iv, fig. 5. 1857. Pecopteris carolinensis Emm.: Op. cit., p. 100, text fig. 68, pl. iv, figs. 1, 2. 1883. Asterocarpus virginiensis Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 41, pl. xix, figs. 2, 2a,.3-5; pl. xx; pl. xxi, figs. 1, la, 1b, 2; pl. xxii; pl. xxiii; pl. xxiv, figs. 1, 2, 2a. 1883. Laccopteris Emmonsi Font.: Op. cit., p. 102, pl. xlviii, figs. 6, 7. 1883. Laccopteris carolinensis (Emm.) Font.: Op. cit., p. 102, pl. xlix, figs. 11, 12, 12a. Only one important pinna of this plant seems to have been found. Mr. Wanner figured it and says that the figure shows part of a frond not referred to any genus because of insufficient data. The nervation can not be discerned, nor were any other specimens of its kind found. Professor Fontaine seems to have found the specimen, and remarks: This seems to be a fragment, with small pinnules, of Asterocarpus virginiensis. At least such a fragment of that fossil occurs among Mr. Wanner’s plants. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus TASNIOPTERIS Brongniart. TNIOPTERIS? YORKENSIS Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXII, Figs. 4-6. Professor Fontaine’s treatment of this species is as follows: In Fig. 4 of Pl. XXII Mr. Wanner depicts a long, narrow leaf as a form of Macro- teniopteris magrifolia. A careful inspection of this specimen convinces me that it is not M. magnifolid. It is, I think, a Teniopteris, but as the leaf is imperfect and there is only one specimen of it, Ido not positively identify it as such. ‘If it be one, it is the first of the genus found in the Older Mesozoic of the Atlantic States. The fol- lowing points indicate that it isa Tzeniopteris: The length is great for a leaf of ‘its small width, and the width changes little throughout. The midrib is strongly defined and prominent, unlike the vaguely defined, flat midrib of M. magnifolia. No form of M. magnifolia as narrow as this ever attained such a length. It reminds one strongly of some of the Tzeniopterids of the Oroville Jurassic flora. It may also be compared with T. ltenuinervis Brauns. The nerves, however, seem to be finer and closer than those of the latter plant. Fig. 5 of Pl. XXII represents a plant that certainly is not M. magnifolia. It prob- ably is the same with the plant represented by Fig. 4. Fig. 6 of Pl. XXII may represent a smaller form of the same plant, or it may be Pseudodaneopsis reticulata Font. [P. plana (Emm.) Font. ] Provisionally the plant given in Fig. 4 may be called Teniopteris? yorkensis. It comes from York Haven, N. C.R. BR. cut, as do the forms depicted in Figs. 5 and 6. 238 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. __ As Professor Fontaine has said, Mr. Wanner regarded these speci- mens as small forms of Macroteniopteris magnifolia, and in discussing the larger leaves he almost entirely neglected, to comment on them after having drawn them. The following is his only allusion to them: Parts of leaves from the Conewago locality are shown in Figs. 4-6, Pl. XXII. The only tip found and illustrated, Fig. 6, Pl. XXII, is somewhat obscure, whilst no basal ends have been obtained from here. Genus MACROTZINIOPTERIS Schimper. MAcROT2NIOPTERIS MAGNIFOLIA (Rogers) Schimper. Pl. XXII, Figs. 7-9; Pl. XXIII; Pl. XXIV. 1848. Teniopteris magnifolia Rogers: Philadelphia Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, 1848, p. 306, pl. xiv, unnumbered fig.on the right, } nat. size. On this species Professor Fontaine remarks: Mr. Wanner has in his collection several good specimens of this plant. On Pl. XXIV he gives a good representation of a portion of a leaf of the largest size. Fig. 7 of Pl. XXII gives a form that is probably M. magnifolia. It may, however, well be some larger Tzeniopteris, like J. superba. Mr. Wanner took a special interest in this species and gives the fol- lowing descriptive account: No impressions of whole leaves were found. Pl. XXIV shows part of a large leaf with a truncate termination. Figs. 2 and 3, Pl. XXIII, are ends of other leaves, in all cases truncate. Whilst impressions of different parts of leaves are very common at the York Haven locality, strange to say, no tips similar to those which one would expect to find were observed. All ends, as shown, were truncate. Figs. 8 and 9, Pl. XXII, are illustrations of typical bases. The side of one is entire, that of the other nearly so. . Fig. 1, Pl. XXIII, shows the venation. The nerves are fine, parallel, and about one- third of a millimeter apart. In nearly all of the specimens the forking of the nerves is not evident; on the contrary, they seem to be single and parallel to the point of insertion; but in a few specimens, by closer inspection, nerves are seen that fork very close to the point of attachment, and apparently within the rachis. Fontaine calls attention to the difference in shape of the specimens which he examined, a peculiarity which is strikingly presented in the specimens from these two localities. Localities.—_N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven; Little Conewago Creek, exploitation pit. Genus PSEUDODANZOPSIS Fontaine. PsEUDODANZOPSIS PLANA (Emmons) Fontaine. Pl. XXV, Figs. 1, 2. 1857. Strangerites planus Emm.: American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 122, fig. 90. 1883. Pseudodanexopsis reticulata Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U.S. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, pp. 59, 116, pl. xxx, figs. 1, 2, 2a, 3, 4, 4a; pl. liv, fig. 3. warp] TRIASSIO FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 239 Professor Fontaine says of this specimen: This plant, left in doubt by Mr. Wanner, is almost certainly Pseudodansopsis reticulata. It has the copious anastomosis, with the thick and smooth leaf substance of that plant. r Mr. Wanner’s statement with regard to it is as follows: The specimen Fig. 1, Pl. XXV, contains neither base nor tip, and reveals the nerva- tion shown in Fig. 2 on but a small part of the surface. The nerves are not easily distinguished, evidently because of the thickness of the leaf substance, as indicated by the impression. The midrib is prominent and stout. This is the only specimen of its kind found, though several other impressions somewhat similar, in which no venation can be traced, may belong to the same species. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus LONCHOPTERIS Brongniart. LONCHOPTERIS OBLONGA (Emmons) Fontaine. Pl. XXV, Figs. 3-5. 1856. Acrostichites oblongus Emm.: Geological Report of the Midland Counties of North Carolina, p. 326, pl. iv, figs, 6, 8. 1857. Acrostichites oblongus Emm.: American Geology, Part VI, p. 101, pl. iv, figs. 6, 8. 1883. Lonchopteris oblongus (Emm.) Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 103, pl. xlix, figs. 1, la. Mr. Wanner correctly classed this in the genus Lonchopteris. Pro- fessor Fontaine says: This is much like Lonchopteris oblongus of the North Carolina Mesozoic, and most probably is that plant. The pinnules are not smaller than many of those of the North Carolina fossil; the nervation is also similar. The only difference is that the York fossil has a distinct granulation, strikingly like the fructification of Acrosti- chites. As, however, the fructification of ZL. oblongus is not known, this feature does not preclude the identification of the York fossil with that of North Carolina. The following are Mr. Wanner’s notes: Assuming that the specimens, Figs. 3-5, Pl. X XV, are pinne of acompound fern, the shape of the pinnules, together with the elliptical meshes formed by the anastomos- ing nerves, Fig. 5, refer this impression to Lonchopteris. The pinnules, however, are very much smaller in proportion to the length of the pinne than in L. virginiensis, nor are they so closely crowded together, moreover they show a very pronounced . variation in size and shape near the base of the pinne. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus SAGENOPTERIS Presl. SAGENOPTERIS sp. Fontaine. Pl. XXV, Fig. 6. The very defective character of this specimen makes it doubtful whether it is best to admit it.at all, but in view of the special interest attaching to the York florula it may stand as a stimulus to further 240 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. discovery. As Professor Fontaine says, ‘It is too poorly preserved to give any distinct character, but the nervation indicates that it is a fragment of some Sagenopteris.” Mr. Wanner speaks of it as an undetermined frond, and says that the figure shows an impression sufficiently legible to be referred to a fern, but so fragmentary as to prevent any further conjecture as to genus or species. It suggests Thyrsopteris. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus ACROSTICHITES Géppert. ACROSTICHITES LINN/£FOLIUS (Bunbury) Fontaine. Pl. XXV, Figs. 7, 8. 1847. Neuropteris linnzefolius Bunb.: Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., Vol. III, Pt. I, pp. 281, 288, pl. x. 1857. Cyclopteris linneefolia (Bunb.) Heer: Am. Jour. Sci., 2d Ser., Vol. XXIV, p. 428. 1883. Acrostichites linneefolius (Bunb.) Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U. §. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 25, pl. vi, figs. 3, 3a; pl. vii, figs. 14; pl. viii, figs. 1, 1a; pl. ix. Mr. Wanner had doubtfully identified this plant with Mertensides bullatus Font. Professor Fontaine says: This identification is probably not correct. I noted several sterile pinnules of Acrostichites linnzefolius and none of Mertensides bullatus. The specimen is probably the former plant. Mr. Wanner had made the following very brief statement with regard to it: A fragmentary part of the original, Pl. X XV, Figs. 7, 8, seems to belong here. How- ever, other and better specimens are needed satisfactorily to locate it. Fig. 8 shows the venation. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. ACROSTICHITES MICROPHYLLUS Fontaine? Pl. XXV, Figs. 9, 10. 1883. Acrostichites microphyllus Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U.S.: Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 33, pl. vii, fig. 5; pl. x, fig, 2; pl. xi, fig. 4; pl. xii, figs. 3, 3a. Mr. Wanner doubtfully identified this plant with Mertensides distans Font. Professor Fontaine thinks it can not be that species, and remarks: This small fragment, marked doubtfully as Mertensides distans, did not show, so far as I could see, the nervation given by Mr. Wanner. The pinnules havea granulation that suggests that the plant may be an Acrostichites. If so, it is probably A. micro- phyllus. Another specimen, not figured by Mr. Wanner, shows some rather obscure pinnules of A. microphyllus. At the same time the pinnules of Mr. Wanner’s Merten- sides distans look much like his Lonchopteris? WARD.] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 241 The following is Mr. Wanner’s note: Whilst the exact shape of the pinnules of the frond, Pl. XXV, Fig. 9, can not be deter- mined easily, the opposite is true of the nervation. The lower pair of lateral nerves forks twice (Fig. 10), all the rest but once. The pinnee are broken off at each end. Only one other specimen was found. Locatity.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Class EQUISETALES. Family EQUISETACEA. Genus EQUISETUM Linneus. EQuisETUM Rogersn (Bunbury) Schimper. Pl. XXV, Figs. 11,12. — 1851. Calamites Rogersii Bunb.:! Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, 1851, Proceedings, p. 190. 1869. Equisetum Rogersii (Bunb.) Schimp.: Traité de Paléontologie Végétale, Vol. I, p. 276. Professor Fontaine says of this: Mr. Wanner indicates by question his doubt regarding the species. He has, with- out doubt, in his collection a large fragment of a crushed stem of E. Rogersii, show- ing several nodes and the imprint of a portion of the outer surface of the plant. There are also several small imprints of Equisetum, which suggest the presence of E. Muensteri, but they are too vague to justify this identification. : The following is Mr. Wanner’s description: The compressed and distorted specimen, Fig. 11, unmistakably reveals the fact in its nodes and appearance that it belongs to the Equisete. No otherspecimens were found to shed additional light on its individuality, though a still more fragmentary impression made by another member of the same family is illustrated in Fig. 12. Locality.—The pumping station, N. C. R. R. cut, 600 feet above the plant-bearing shales. 1§pecimens of this species had been several times described and figured by other authors, who confounded it with the Carboniferous species Calamites Suckowii Brongn. Brongniart distinguished it as var. 6 (Hist. Vég. Foss., p. 125, pl. xvi, fig. 1). 20 GEOL, PT 2 16 242 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. Subkingdom SPERMATOPHYTA (Phanerogams). Subdivision GYMNOSPERMAE. Class CYCADALES. Family CYCADACE. Genus PTEROPHYLLUM Brongniart. PreROPHYLLUM INZQUALE Fontaine. Pl. XXVI, Figs. 2, 3. 1883. Pterophyllum inzquale Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 64, pl. xxxvi. Mr. Wanner identified this doubtfully with Ctenophyllum Emmonsi Font. Professor Fontaine simply says: This is almost certainly a fragment of Pterophyllum inzquale Font. of the Virginia Older Mesozoic. Mr. Wannev’s description is as follows: The leaf, evidently a Ctenophyllum, has its upper portion pushed out of place, but in such a manner as to be restored easily to its true position. The leaflets are of uniform width, with a slight expansion along the rachis. They are striated by closely placed parallel nerves, about one-third of a millimeter apart, some of which fork shortly after leaving the rachis. Fig. 3 shows the nervation. Several of the leaflets terminate in broadly rounded or truncate tips, which, taken in connection with the absence of any great length, suggests Ctenophyllum Emmonsi. More speci- mens are needed better to define its properties. Locality.—Little Conewago Creek, west of Manchester, exploitation pit. Genus ANOMOZAMITES Schimper. ANOMOZAMITES PRINCEPS (Oldham and Morris) Schimper? Pl. XXVI, Fig. 1. 1862. Pterophyllum princeps Oldh. and Morr.: Mem. Geol. Surv. India, Paleontologia Indica, Ser. II, Foss. Fl. Gondw. Syst., Vol. I, Foss. Fl. Rajmahal, p. 23, pl. x; pl. xi, fig. 1; pl. xii, fig. 1; pl. xiii, figs. 1, 2. 1870. Anomozamites princeps (Oldh. and Morr.) Schimp.: Traité de Paléontologie Végétale, Vol. II, p. 142. Professor Fontaine’s description, which follows, explains the cir- cumstances under which this species was brought to light. For some reason he prefers to retain the original name of Oldham and Morris and call it Pterophyllum princeps, although not only did Schimper place it in his genus Anomozamites, but Feistmantel accepted this change and it has been so known since 1870. The figure is Professor Fontaine’s. Among the specimens collected by Mr. Wanner is a fragment of a large leaf that has not been figured and described by him. The name given on the label is Macro- Ward] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 2438 teniopteris magnifolia.. This form, in the segmentation of the leaf, is strikingly sug- gestive of a large Pterophyllum, and it most resembles P. princeps Oldh. and Morr., of the Rajmahal flora of India, showing’ the same variation in: the width of the segments and the same dimensions. As, however, there is only one specimen, it is possible that it is a leaf of Macroteniopteris magnifolia that has by accident been segmented in this manner. I have collected many hundred specimens of M. magnifolia from the Older Mesozoic of Virginia and have never seen a case of a leaf lacerated by acci- dent that was so suggestive as this. It should be stated also that Emmons mentions seeing in the flora of the Older Mesozoic of North Carolina supposed leaves of M. mag- nifolia that were so regularly segmented that they attracted his attention as being possibly not that plant. They may well have been some forms similar to this from York. Genus CTENOPHYLLUM Schimper. CTENOPHYLLUM GRANDIFOLIUM Fontaine. Pl. XXVIII. 1883. Ctenophyllum grandifolium Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 73, pl. xxxix, figs. 1, la, 2, 3, 3a; pl. xl; pl. xli; pl. xlii, fig. 1. This specimen was accurately determined and figured by Mr. Wanner. After looking over the collection Professor Fontaine says: Mr. Wanner has several very good specimens of this plant, and gives some good figures of it. Mr. Wanner’s notes are as follows: The leaf, three separated parts of which are shown in Figs. 1, 2,3, Pl. XX VII, is very fragmentary. One and two closely associated with three in the matrix, the impres- sions being in the same piece ofshale, probably belong to the same leaf and are so considered. Only parts of the leaflets remain extending to varying distances from the rachis, in all cases without tips. After a slight expansion they are attached throughout their entire width to the rachis. Immediately beyond the midrib some of the leaflets are narrowest, from whence they gradually expand. Two of the long- est segments at lengtH attain a uniform width, for which reason the same peculiarity ig assumed to be a characteristic of the leaf. In this specimen it is difficult to determine whether only some or all of the nerves fork shortly after leaving the rachis, as shown in Fig. 5, a magnified portion of a leaflet. The nerves are close, about one-third of a millimeter apart, and parallel; in this specimen they can not be resolved into two nerve strands, a property to which Fontaine calls attention. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. CreNnopHYLLUM WaANNERIANUM Fontaine n. sp. Pl, RVIEL, Fig. 1. This was supposed by Mr. Wanner to represent Ctenophyllum Braunianum var. « of Goppert, but Professor Fontaine says: This is a new species of Ctenophyllum, allied to C. Braunianum. The specimen figured by Mr. Wanner is a fine one. There is in his collection a smaller fragment 244 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. of the same species, showing leaflets narrower and more delicate than those of the form he depicts. It, however, evidently belongs to the same species. The form given by Mr. Wanner may be taken as the type. It has narrower leaflets that are uniformly narrow, not more than 1 mm. wide. None of them are entire. The greatest length seen is4cem. They go off from the midrib at an angle of 45° and are inserted on its side after the position of C. Braunianum. Mr. Wanner has made the following note: The lower part of the leaf, its apex, and the tips of the leaflets are wanting. Enough, however, remains to present very clearly the characteristics of Clenophyllum Braunianum. The long, narrow leaflets, slightly expanded at the base, are attached throughout their entire width to the rachis. The closely placed nerves, about six in number, are parallel. The few other specimens found strikingly duplicate the one illustrated in its essen- tial features. In one the leaflets are not more than one-half as wide. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus DIOONITES Miquel. Dioonires CaRNALLIANUS (GOppert) Bornemann. Pl. XXVIII, Fig. 2. 1843. Pterophyllum Carnallianum Gopp.: Uebersicht schles. Ges., 1843, p. 130, pl. i, fig. 4. : 1856. Dioonites Carnallianus (Gopp.) Born.: Ueber organische Reste der Lettenkohlen- gruppe Thiiringens, p. 56. This plant was regarded by Mr. Wanner as Ctenophyllum Braunia- num and classed with the one represented by Fig. 1 of Pl. XXIX. Professor Fontaine regards them as different. Of this one he says: Schenk, in Foss. Flor. der Grenzchichten, pl. xxxix, fig. 4, gives a representation of a plant which he calls Pterophyllum Carnallianum, but which Schimper regarded as a Dioonites. This fossil seems to be identical with one of the specimens consid- ered by Mr. Wanner as Ctenophyllum Braunianum. The Pennsylvania fossil has broader leaflets and stronger nerves than any form of C. Braunianum. The speci- men is the terminal portion of a leaf, not, however, retaining the tip. The length of the fragment is 14cm. The midrib of the leaf is stout and rigid, showing a maxi- mum width of 3mm. It has narrower leaflets, none of which are entire. The largest fragment hasa length of 6em. The leaflets toward the summit are narrower and seemingly shorter. They are set on the midrib at a very large angle (75°-80°) . The texture of the leaflets seems to have been thin, and they have the same width from base to end. Their width is about 3mm. The nerves could not be made out satisfactorily. This specimen isa finer one than that figured by Schenk. Mr. Wanner says of it: Fig. 2 is marked by a somewhat abrupt shortening of the leaflets near the apex, after which their length remains about the same. The leaflets are terminated by rounded tips and striated by closely-placed parallel nerves, about one-third of a milli- meter apart. It is difficult to trace the nerves to the point of insertion in the rachis, but they seem to be parallel throughout their extent. Fragmentary specimens from the Little Conewago Creek, evidently belonging to warp] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 245 the Ctenophylla, may or may not be of the species Braunianum, for which reason attention is called to that locality in this connection. Localities. —N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven; Little Conewago, exploitation pit, west of Manchester(?). Genus ZAMITES Brongniart. ZAMITES PENNSYLVANICUS Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXVIII, Figs. 3, 4. Mr. Wanner referred this plant very doubtfully to Ctenophyllum truncatum Font. Professor Fontaine regards it as a new species of Zamites and has refigured it (Fig. 4). The following is his description of it: Schenk, in Foss. Flor. der Grenzschichten, pl. xxxv, fig. 8, gives a figure of a plant that he calls Zamites angustifolius. Schimper named it Podozamites angustifolius. The plant Mr. Wanner calls Clenophyllum truncatum is very much like this. It is a true Zamites, as is shown by the insertion of one entire leaflet seen on it. This shows that the leaflets are 3 cm. long, 2mm. wide, and that they are widest near their base, where they are abuptly rounded off. They are attached by a callosity to the upper surface of the midrib. At their tips they are narrowed toa sharp lancet-shaped termination. The nerves are several in number and fine, but were not clearly visible. The following is Mr. Wanner’s account: Fig. 3, Pl. XXVIII, shows part, a very fragmentary part, of a leaf containing the bases of several leaflets. Two other specimens from the same locality, one of which contains leaflets only one-half as wide, exhibit certain characteristics easily recog- nized in this one. No entire leaflets and no tips of leaflets were found. The oppo- site and rather remote leaflets contract near the line of attachment to the rachis, and are neither procurrent nor decurrent. Shortly after emerging from the midrib many of the nerves fork, after which they continue close together and parallel. Were it not for the evident absence of decurrent leaflets the author would refer the specimen to Dioonites Buchianus with greater confidence than he feels now in asso- ciating it with the partially defined Ctenophyllum truncatum. More specimens are needed better to define its characteristics. Locality.—Little Conewago Creek, west of Manchester, exploita- tion pit. ZAMITES YORKENSIS Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXIX, Figs. 1-4. Mr. Wanner regarded this as probably representing Ctenophyllum Braunianum Gopp., and says: In Fig. 1 the leaflets are very close together, overlapping and pushed over the rachis in such a manner as largely to conceal the midrib and make it difficult to determine the exact manner in which the veins depart from the line of contact. Fig. 2 represents a magnified portion of a leaflet and shows the venation. * 246 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. Professor Fontaine sees in it another new species of Zamites, and has refigured the same specimen (Figs. 3, 4) to give his interpretation of it. He describes it as follows: On the fragment of slate that shows the imprint of Txniopteris? yorkensis, there is an imprint of what seems certainly to be a true Zamites of the type of Z. Feneonis, which type characterizes the Jurassic. This plant may be the form depicted by Mr. Wanner in Fig. 1, Pl. XXIX. Ifso, thefigure does not correctly represent the insertion of the leaves. It should also be stated that then the identification of the plant given in that figure with Clenophyllum Braunianum var. a iserroneous. The description of the plant now in question is as follows: _ The specimen is a portion of a leaf showing a number of leaflets, some of them entire. The leaves are closely placed, about 25 mm. long, 4 mm. wide, and widest at base. They taper to a subacute tip. At base they are slightly auriculate and are inserted on the upper surface of the midrib. The nerves are fine and closely placed. They are not distinct enough to show the details. Fig. 3 represents the specimen of natural size, and 4 gives a leaflet enlarged 2 diameters, and partly restored. This and the preceding constitute the first species of Zamites found in the older Mesozoic flora of the Eastern States. Genus PODOZAMITES Friedrich Braun. Popozamitss pisTans (Presl) Friedrich Braun ? Pl. XXIX, Figs. 5-7. 1833. Zamites distans Presl in Sternberg: Flora der Vorwelt, Vol. II, p. 196, pl. xli, fig. 1. 1843. Podozamites distans (Presl) Friedrich Braun in Minster: Beitrige zur Petrefac- tenkunde, Vol. II, Pt. VI, p. 28. Mr. Wanner identified this doubtfully with Zamites tenuinervis Font. Professor Fontaine says: These are not Zamites tenuinervis, but fragments of some other Zamites or Podoza- mites. The fragments are too obscure to determine fully. The smaller fragment is like Schenk’s Zamites distans (Podozamites distans), as given in Foss. Flor. der Grenz- schichten, pl. xxxvi, figs 1-9, 9a, 9b. The larger resembles the variety given in fig. 10 of the same plate. Mr. Wanner has the following note: Figs. 5 and 7 of Pl. XXIX show parts of detached leaflets containing the remains of basal ends exhibiting properties which agree with those described by Fontaine. No whole leaves and no tips were found. Fig. 6 shows the venation. The veins are parailel, very fine and close, being about one-tenth of a millimeter apart. The surface of some leaflets presents a regularly banded appearance, owing to the prominence of stronger nerves, about one in five. Locality. —Little Conewago Creek, lowest horizon. warD.] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 247 Genus SPHENOZAMITES Brongmuart. SPHENOZAMITES RocErstanus Fontaine. Pl. XXIX, Figs. 8, 9. 1883. Sphenozamites Rogersianus Font.:! Older Mesozoic Flora, of Virginia, Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 80, pl. xliii, figs. 1, 1a; pl. xliv, figs. 1, 2, 2a, 2b; pl. xlv, figs. 1, 2. Professor Fontaine simply remarks that this is correctly determined. Mr. ‘Wanner’s notes are very meager: Figs 8 and 9, Pl. X XIX, present part of a turned-over leaf. The specimen is poor but shows the dichotomous forking of the nerves and the transverse bars, characteristics of Fontaine’s type specimen. But two specimens were found; the other, being equally fragmentary, while it agrees with the one illustrated, reveals nothing additional. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus CYCADEOSPERMUM Saporta. CycaDEOSPERMUM WaNNERI Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXIX, Fig. 10. Mr. Wanner called this a ‘‘seed of Leptostrobus.” Professor Fon- taine says: This is not a seed of Leptostrobus but is probably one of some cycad. It is almost circular in form and looks somewhat as if it were winged, as represented by Mr. Wan- ner. This appearance is probably due to the accentuation, from pressure, of the thicker central portion of the nut. It has the dimensions 8 by 11mm. It may be called Cycadeospermum Wanneri. Mr. Wanner says of it: This seed, by reason of association with Leptostrobus, has been referred to it. Seeds of this kind were not found at York Haven. They are plentiful at the other locality, on the Little Conewago, suggestively associated with Brachyphyllum but not with Leptostrobus, the latter being unknown in this locality and represented by only one specimen at York Haven. Locality.—Little Conewago Creek, 14 miles west of Manchester, exploitation pit, green shale. 1In view of the fact that Professor Fontaine did not find at Williame College the specimen figured by Emmons in his American Geology, Part VI, pl. vi, fig. 5, and described on p. 35 under the name Calamites punctatus, considered to belong to this species (see Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol, VI, Pp. 98, and infra, p. 288) it is not thought best to enter that form in the synonymy, especially as its earlier date would involve a change of nomenclature. 248 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. Class BENNETTITALES. Family BENNETTITACE. Genus CYCADEOMYELON Saporta. CYCADEOMYELON YORKENSE Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXX. 1888. Palissya? sp. Newb.: Fossil Fishes and Fossil Plants of the Triassic Rocks of New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley, Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. XIV, p. 94, pl xxvi, figs. 1, 2. Mr. Wanner designated this as the ‘‘trunk of a conifer?” resting the case on the figures of Dr. Newberry. Professor Fontaine, how- ever, regards it as a Cycadeomyelon not hitherto described, and remarks: This is an imprint of the same kind as those Saporta has described, with the generic name Cycadeomyelon, in Paléont. francaise, Plantes Jurassiques, Tome II, pp. 331-332. He considers them as casts of partly decayed cycad trunks. The cigar- shaped prominences on this fossil are decidedly larger than those of Saporta’s C. het- tangensis. If it is worth while giving a name to it, it might be called Cycadeomyelon yorkense. Mr. Wanner gives the following account of it: Dr. J. 8. Newberry, in Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. XIV, p. 94, pl. xxvi, figs. 1, 2, illustrates and describes what he supposed to be the decorticated trunk of some conifer from Newark, New Jersey. A similar impression from here, Fig. 1, Pl. XXX, comes from a locality which yielded nothing else. For that reason as well as because of the decorticated and compressed condition of the specimen, no additional light is shed upon the character of the trunk which produced it. Thin seams of carbonized vegetable matter are irregularly included in the overlapping folds that mark the specimen. The section, Fig. 2, is drawn at the point of greatest width. Locality.—Fox Run, one-eighth of a mile from its junction with the Little Conewago Creek. , There seems scarcely any doubt that whatever the stems from Newark may be, this one from York represents the same plant. Dr. Newberry’s fig. 2 is almost exactly the same as Mr. Wanner’s Fig. 1. Dr. Newberry refers to the specimen called Voltzta coburgensis Schaur., figured by Schenck in Paleontographica, Vol. XI, pl. xlvi, fig. 2, and there certainly is a close resemblance between this figure and those of the American specimens.. It may not be out of place to draw attention to the somewhat similar class of objects which I have described under the name Feistmantelia.? The specimen from the Lettenkohl, near Wiirzburg, forms a sort of transition between some of the forms to which I there call attention and those now under consideration. 1Nineteenth Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. Survey, Pt. II, 1899, pp. 693-696, pl. elxix, fig. 19, wakD] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 249 Class GINKGOALES. Family GINKGOACEZ. Genus BAIERA Friedrich Braun. Barera Mvensrerrana (Presl) Heer? Pl. XXXI, Figs. 1, 2. 1838. Sphzrococcites Muensterianus Pres] in Sternberg: Flora der Vorwelt, Vol. II, p. 105, pl. xxviii, fig. 3. 1841. Baiera dichotoma Fr. Braun: Flora, Neue Reihe, Jahrg. XXIV, p. 33. 1843. Baiera dichotoma Fr. Braun in Minster: Beitrige zur Petrefactenkunde, Vol. II, Pt. VI, p. 20, pl. xii, figs. 1-8. 1857. Baiera ? sp. Emm.: Am. Geol., Pt. VI, p. 133, fig. 102. 1863. Jeanpaulia Schlagintweitiana Popp: Neues Jahrb f. Mineralogie, 1863, p. 412. 1866. Jeanpaulia Muensteriana (Presl) Schenk: Foss. Flor. der Grenzschichten des Keuper und Lias Frankens, p. 39, pl. ix. 1878. Baiera Muensteriana (Presl) Heer in Saporta: Plantes Jurassiques. Paléontol- ogie Frangaise, 2e Sér., Vol. III, p. 272, pl. clv [xxvii], figs. 10-12; pl. clvi [xxviii], figs. 1-6; pl. clvii [xxix ], figs. 1-3. Mr. Wanner thought this might bea Baieropsis. Professor Fon- taine admits its doubtful character, and says: This is an obscure and very fragmentary specimen. It is too imperfect to show anything definite, but may be a small form of Baiera Miinsteriana. It is a small form, resembling that plant. Mr. Wanner’s note is equally brief: The few specimens found are so fragmentary as to present but little more than out- lines; yet in general appearance they sufficiently resemble Baieropsis to justify their being referred to some species of that genus. Localities. —N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven; Little Cone- wago, lowest horizon. Class CONIFER4. Family PINACEA. Genus PALISSYA Endlicher. PaissyA SPHENOLEPIS (Friedrich Braun) Brongniart. PL. XXXII. 1843. Cunninghamites sphenolepis Fr. Braun: Beitr. z. Urgeschichte d. Pflanzen, Pro- : gramm z. Jahresber. d. K6n. Kreis-Landw. u. Gewerbsschule z. Bay- reuth, pp. 17, 18, pl. ii, figs. 16-20; also in Miinster: Beitrage zur Petrefac- tenkunde, Vol. II, Pt. VI, p. 24, pl. xiii, figs. 16-20. 1847. Palissya Braunit Endl.: Synopsis Coniferarum, p. 306. 1849. Palissya sphenolepis (Fr. Braun) Brongn.: Tableau, p. 68. 1856. Walchia longifolius Emm.: Geological Report of the Midland Counties of North Carolina, p. 333. 1857. Walchia longifolius Emm.: American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 105, pl. iva. 250 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. Mr. Wanner determined this plant correctly, following Professor Fontaine in the use of the synonymy P. Braunii of Endlicher. As Endlicher founded the genus Palissya on the plants that Braun called Cunninghamites sphenolepis and carefully described and figured in two prominent places, he had, of course, no right whatever to change Braun’s specific name. Professor Fontaine says: - There are numerous fine specimens of P. Brauwnii in My. Wanner’s collection. Some of them are better and larger than any previously known tome. One of these large specimens shows a feature not seen by me on any previously known fossils. The young, undeveloped branches are seen in the axils of the leaves. Fig. 2, Pl. XXXII, represents one of these forms, and Fig. 1, of the same plate, gives a good representation of one of the large fragments. The following is Mr. Wanner’s account: Part of a large limb, Fig. 1, Pl. XX XII, containing broken branches and leaves in a fairly good state of preservation, exhibits the characteristics of the plant as presented ~*. in this and other specimens. Fig. 4 represents a leaf magnified to show the venation. The midrib is prominent. The leaves are decidedly decurrent and, when not pushed out of place or macerated, as is frequently the case, are uniformly and strongly fal- cate. Another specimen, Fig. 2, only part of the impression in the shale, presents a different phase and well illustrates the changed appearance caused by the presence of young shoots. Fig. 5 illustrates part of another limb containing fewer young branches of greater length than those shown in Fig. 2. Another specimen, Fig. 3, natural size, shows the leaf scars. The descriptions of Palissya Braunti, to which the author has had access, are very meager and unsatisfactory, hence, notwithstanding the fact that his specimens are well defined, he is unable to assert, with any degree of certainty, that the plant belongs here. It strongly suggests Sequoia Reichenbachi. Localaties.—Y ork Haven, N. C. R. R. cut; Little Conewago Creek, exploitation pit and lowest horizon. Pauissya DIFFUSA (Emmons) Fontaine. Pl. XXXI, Figs. 3-5. 1856. Walchia diffusus Emm.: Geological Report of the Midland Counties of North Carolina, p. 333, pl. iii, fig. 2. 1857. Walchia (Lycopodites) diffusus Emm.: American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 105, pl. iii, fig. 2. 1857. Walchia gracile Emm.: American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 108, fig. 75. 1883. Palissya diffusa (Emm.) Font.: Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI., p. 107, pl. li, fig. 4. 1883. Cheirolepis Muensteri (Schenk) Schimp. in Fontaine: Op. cit., p. 108, pl. lili, fig. 3. Of this Professor Fontaine says: Mr. Wanner has correctly determined this plant, of which he has a number of very fine specimens. Some of them are much finer than any obtained by even Emmons from the North Carolina beds. There is some difference between the Pennsylvania and the North Carolina fossils. The Pennsylvania specimens do not show such a marked recurving of the leaves as those from North Carolina, and the midnerve of the W4RD.] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 251 leaves is not so distinct. . These features may be due to the accidents of preservation, and do not call for the separation of the Pennsylvania plant as a variety. The leaves of this form are strikingly like those of Cheirolepis gracilis Feistm. of the Rajmahal flora. The following is Mr. Wanner’s record: Fig. 3, Pl. XX XI, represents a very symmetrical branch in an excellent state of pres- ervation. Both twigs and leaves are crowded closely together. Fig. 4 presents another specimen, containing near the extremity of one of its lateral branches the impression made by some kind of afruit. Beyond the general outline and the unmis- takable imprint made by the stem, by which it is attached to the twig, the fruit con- tains no definite markings to give it character. In another specimen not illustrated the leaves are somewhat larger. Fig. 5 shows the venation in a magnified leaf. Palissya diffusa is common at the York Haven locality and may be represented at the Little Conewago Creek, but the few fragmentary specimens from the latter place eannot be positively identified. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus BRACHYPHYLLUM Brongniart. BRACHYPHYLLUM YORKENSE Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXXI, Figs. 6-9. Mr. Wanner identified this with Brachyphyllum crassicaule Font., of the Potomac flora. Professor Fontaine does not accept this, and says: This is not Brachyphyllum crassicaule, but a’ new and smaller species, which may appropriately bear the name B. yorkense. There are in Mr. Wanner’s collection several imprints of a small Brachyphyllum which resembles Saporta’s B. Papareli, a plant of the Rhetic and Infralias of France. It is, however, I think, a new species. Mr. Wanner’s figure shows the most com- plete specimen. The ‘ultimate twigs on this are very slender. The full length of none of them is shown. They are only 2mm. wide. The leaves seem to be thinner in texture than those of the Jurassic Brachyphylla. They are rotundate-rhombic in form, with the longer diameter transverse to the axis of the twig. Fig. 8 shows the shape of the best-preserved forms, the enlargement being 3 diameters. They are subspirally arranged, somewhat after the fashion of those of Paleeocyparis (Echinostro- bus) of the Oolite. Mr. Wanner says of it: : Fig. 6, Pl. XX XI, presents a branch containing closely placed lateral twigs. Other specimens from the same locality vary considerably in the number of branches, usually having fewer than are contained in the illustration. No terminal branches were identified to a certainty, though several blunt ends may represent extremities, and if such is the case the width of the branch remains the same throughout its extent. The leaves are thick and closely appressed, with beaks and a scarcely perceptible keel, as illustrated in Fig. 7, a magnified leaf. Locality.—Little Conewago Creek, exploitation pit. With regard to the small specimen, Fig. 9, Professor Fontaine remarks: ; I did not see this small fragment. It is probably a portion of a twig of Brachy- phyllum yorkense, above described. 252 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. Mr. Wanner’s note upon it was as follows: This specimen, Fig. 9, Pl. XX XI, is suggestive of Frenelopsis, and that is about all that can be said of it. It isa fragment of a stem of some sort, the only one of that kind found. No traces of leaves and no marks of any sort are visible. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus CHEIROLEPIS Schimper. CHErROLEPIS Murnsreri (Schenk) Schimper. Pl. XXXII, Figs. 1, 2. 1867. Brachyphyllum Muensteri Schenk: F\. der Grenzschichten des Keupers und Lias Frankens, p. 187, pl. xliii, figs. 1-3, 3a, 3b, 4-12, 12a, 1870. Cheirolepis Muensteri (Schenk) Schimp: Traité de Paléontologie Végétale, Vol. II, p. 248. This fine plant was correctly determined and well figured by Mr. Wanner. Professor Fontaine remarks : Mr. Wanner’s collection has a number of specimens of this plant which he has correctly determined and figured well. Some of them are splendid fragments, much finer even than those figured by Schenk. It should be stated that the specimens of this plant hitherto found in the United States are small and imperfect. The find- ing of such fine imprints of this and a number of other older Mesozoic plants makes these Pennsylvania localities very important. The following is Mr. Wanner’s note: A limb, Fig. 1, Pl. XX XIII, bearing branches and twigs, with short decurrent leaves, falcate in arrangement, admirably illustrates the characterictics of the species. The other illustration, Fig. 2, presents a remarkably well preserved and symmetrical branch, a property, however, not peculiar to a few specimens, but belonging to most of those found. Localities. _N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven; Little Cone- wago Creek, exploitation pit and lowest horizon. Genus SCHIZOLEPIS Friedrich Braun. SCHIZOLEPIS LIASO-KEUPERINA Friedrich Braun. Pl. XXXII, Figs. 3-5. 1847. Lepidodendron liaso-keuperinum Fr. Braun: Flora, Neue Reihe, Jahrg. V [XXX], p. 84. 1847. Lepidodendron laricifolium Fr. Braun: Loc. cit. 1847. Isoetites pumilus Fr. Braun: Loe. cit. 1847. Schizolepis liaso-keuperinus Fr. Braun: Ibid., p. 86. 1852. Halochloris baruthina Ett.: Abh. d. k. k. Geol. Reichsanst., Vol. I, Pt. III, No. 3, p. 6, pl. ii, fig. 4. 1867. Schizolepis Braunti Schenk: Foss. Fl. der Grenzschichten des Keupers und Lias, p. 179, pl. xliv, figs. 1-4, 4a, 5. Mr. Wanner believed that the specimen, Fig. 5, represented a dif- ferent plant from that of Figs. 3 and 4. The latter he regarded as warD.] TRIASSIC FLORA OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 253 Sequoia Reichenbach longifolia of the Potomac formation, while the other he identified with Leptostrobus foliosus, also of the Potomac. Professor Fontaine finds them the same, and refers this form to the Schizolepis Braunit of Schenk. Schenk worked over all of Braun’s material, from the Rhetic of Veitlahm, near Culmbach, in the vicinity of Baireuth, in Bavaria, and found that he had given several names to this form. As itisa Schizolepis, Braun’s name, S. léaso-keuperina must be retained, and can not be changed to S. Brauniz, as Schenk proposed to do. The following is Professor Fontaine’s comment on this plant: This is what appears to be a specimen of Schizolepis Braunii, differing from the type only in the somewhat narrower leaves. This is given in Pl. XX XIII, Fig. 3. Fig. 5 of this same plate gives a plant which Mr. Wanner calls Leptostrobus foliosus. It isthe same Schizolepis. This latter specimen is a fragment of a large twig, with several ultimate branches carrying leaves. Mr. Wanner’s notes follow. Relative to the first of these specimens he says: Two specimens were found, only the better of which, Fig. 3, Pl. XX XIII, is illus- trated. They probably belong to anew species. The author is unable to locate the specimen, and names it as he does simply because the leaves in width and falcate arrangement, particularly in the specimen not drawn, suggest Sequoia Reichenbacht longifolia Font. Fig 4 shows a leaf magnified two diameters. On the other specimen he remarks: In the only specimen collected, Fig. 5, Pl. XX XIII, the parallel nerves are faintly visible in several leaves, but the number is not definitely revealed. Three nerves are. recognized beyond question, but doubt exists as to whether or not there is another. As yet no entire leaf has been found. Closely crowded pit marks on the macerated stems indicate a dense foliage, without betraying the order in which the leaves were attached. Locality._N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Genus ARAUCARITES Presl. ARAUCARITES ! PENNSYLVANICUS Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXXIV, Figs. 1, 2. Mr. Wanner made scarcely any attempt to identify this specimen, and contents himself with saying: The author is unable to locate Fig. 1, Pl. XXXIV. The venation is shown in Fig. 2. Another specimen, not drawn, has leaves of about the same length, but of greater width. In it the nerves still more plainly converge at the tip. Professor Fontaine is in doubt with regard to the generic affinities, and describes it as a new species, probably of Araucarites. He says: The specimen figured by Mr. Wanner is a portion of a twig with a number of small leaves. These in size resemble somewhat Saporta’s Araucaria microphylla. On the label accompanying this plant Mr. Wanner has given the name Nageiopsis heterophylla ? 954 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. I have carefully examined this specimen. The nerves are too obscure to be made out with positiveness, and I am not sure that they are not single in each leaf. If so the plant isa Palissya. Mr. Wanner speaks of a second specimen which I have not seen. If the nerves be really numerous, as he gives them, the plant is probably an Araucarites, and possibly the same with the cone in his collection. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. ARAUCARITES YORKENSIS Fontaine n. sp. Pl. XXXIV, Fig. 3. Mr. Wanner merely says of this that it shows the impression made by part of a large cone. The specimen is too fragmentary to be identified or described. Professor Fontaine makes it a new species of Araucarites, which he describes as follows: o This is an imprint of a portion of what must have been a fine, large cone. It is not complete enough to show certainly the original shape, but a globular form is indicated, with a diameter of about 6 cm. The impressions of the terminations of a number of scales are quite distinct, and they have the character of Araucarites. It might be called Araucarites yorkensis. This may be the cone of Araucarites ? penn- sylvanicus, determined from a leafy branch. Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. Subdivision ANGIOSPERMAE. Class MONOCOTY LEDONE£. Family GRAMINEAE. Genus YORKIA Wanner nov. gen. YORKIA GRAMINEOIDES Ward n. sp. Pl. XXXIV, Figs. 4-6. Mr. Wanner has here drawn some very clear figures of this form. Professor Fontaine says of it: Mr. Wanner regards this plant as a new species of grass. The specimen he uses as a type shows nodistinct features. The supposed leaves appear to me to be long succulent stems of some kind. I am not prepared to say that the plant is not some form of grass. , Mr. Wannev’s description is as follows: Graminex. Yorkia nov. gen.; leaves long, narrow, smooth, thick, and deeply chan- neled, with no perceptible variation in width. In the specimen illustrated, Fig. 4, Pl. XIV, there are no whole leaves, nor were any found, but the impressions indi- cate that none were less than 15 cm. in length, ranging from 1 to 2 mm. in width. An indistinct impression at the base can be traced clearly, but can not be resolved into more than a faint vegetable imprint. Markings made by slender roots extend a short distance below the base. No tips of leaves were observed, but Fig. 6 represents the nearest approach to an entire end. Fig. 5 shows the base of another cluster of leaves, about which is a delicate obscure mantle produced by some organic substance. WARD.] TRIASSIC PLANTS FROM MARYLAND. 255 Locality.—N. C. R. R. cut, south of York Haven. The Marquis Saporta described and figured,‘ under the name of Poacites, a considerable number of grass-like forms from the Mesozoic of Portugal, some of them from the Infralias, others from the upper- most Jura, and still others from the Lower Cretaceous. They were all supposed to represent portions of leaves and not culms. The plant discovered by Mr. Wanner closely resembles some of these, but the leaves are much longer than any obtained by M. Choffat from the Portuguese beds. If these leaves grew directly from a cespitose base, as Mr. Wanner’s figures would imply, it is difficult to refer them to the grass family, but if Fig. 5 represents a short collection of culms giving off leaves from their upper nodes, this would not wholly nega- tive the idea of their belonging to the Gramines, as Mr. Wanner sup- poses. At any rate, the form is quite definite and extremely interesting. I therefore retain the generic name suggested by Mr. Wanner, which carries with it no systematic implications, and express the likeness of the plant to a grass by the specific name chosen. The systematic posi- tion given to the plant is, of course, merely conjectural. The following general remark by Professor Fontaine on Mr. Wan- ner’s collection and work may fittingly conclude this part of our subject: Mr. Wanner has succeeded in making a surprisingly good and varied collection of fossils. A number of them had not yet been found in the Trias of America. Some of them are apparently new. A number of splendid impressions of fossils previously described are found in his material. These are better specimens than those by which these fossils have been hitherto known. Mr. Wanner deserves great credit for his intelligent use of the opportunity afforded him for collecting from a region hereto- fore not known as yielding good plants. The plants in this collection seem to indicate a somewhat higher Mesozoic horizon than that of the Virginia, and even of the North Carolina beds, being more decidedly Rhetic in character. TRIASSIC PLANTS FROM MARYLAND. In 1883” Mr. P. Frazer, in treating the New Red Sandstone Region, makes passing mention ‘‘of a plant bed in Frederick County, Md.” At the meeting of the Geological Society of America on December 30, 1890, in the course of the discussion of Dr. Williams’s paper on the Petrography and Structure of the Piedmont Plateau in Maryland, Mr. Charles S. Prosser called attention to the remark quoted above and asked Dr. Williams for further information.’ In reply, Dr. Williams said: Fossils have recently been found in two localities in the Triassic of Frederick County, Maryland: first, by Professor Philip R. Uhler, about 2’miles west of Fred- 1 Flore Fossile du Portugal, Direction des Travaux Géologiques du Portugal, Lisbonne, 1894. 2Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, C4, 1883, p. 29. 3 Bull. Geol. Soe. America, Vol. II, March, 1891, p. 318. 256 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. erick; and, secondly, by Mr.S. L. Powell, not far from Utica Mills. Those collected by Mr. Powell are from the red shales, and are very abundant. Some of the forms resemble nuts; others may be interlacing roots.’ T am not aware that anything has been published relative to the dis- coveries of either Professor Uhler or Mr. Powell here recorded. In the spring of 1890 there were discovered in the red sandstone quarries at Seneca, on the Potomac, at the mouth of Seneca Creek, Maryland, some very fine specimens of Dendrophycus. The first of ‘these, and the finest that has been found, was brought to the National Museum on May 7 by Mr. D. L. Shoemaker, proprietor of the quarry. I recognized it at once and took so deep an interest in it that I visited the place a few days later, in company with Mr. Charles S. Prosser, and we collected a number of additional specimens. They are well marked and typical of this form; but, like all others thus far known, are destitute of organic matter or coaly pellicle. They closely resem- ble D. Desorti Lx., of the Devonian of Iowa, a fine specimen of which is in the collection of the National Museum, but they have the red color of the building stone in which they occur. They differ perhaps more from the formi found in the Trias at Portland, Connecticut, and named by Dr. Newberry D. tréassicus, of which mention has already been made. It is, however, interesting to know that this genus occurs at two widely separated localities of this formation. Important differences exist between these and the Maryland speci- mens, differences sufficient to constitute the latter a distinct species. I shall therefore call this species Dendrophycus Shoemakert, thereby acknowledging Mr. Shoemaker’s kindness in bringing the above- mentioned specimen to the Museum, without which act the existence of this form in the Maryland deposit might never have been discovered. The fine specimen brought by Mr. Shoemaker was carefully photo- graphed, under the immediate supervision of Mr. De Lancey W. Gill, and the accompanying half-tone illustration shows with great minute- ness all the details of structure; and I also had photographs taken of the best specimen collected by Mr. Prosser and myself. This last is represented on Pl. XXXV, Fig. 2, and by the side of it, Fig. 1, is the view of D. triassicus Newb., of Portland, Connecticut, already men- tioned (supra, p. 228). Pl. XX XV1is the view of the original specimen brought by Mr. Shoemaker, the most complete thus far found. The description of the species is as follows: DENDROPHYCUS SHOEMAKERI Ward n. sp. PL. XXXV, Fig. 2; Pl. XXXVI. Upper portions of the so-called rhizomes alone present, forming the rachis of the frond. Fronds very numerous, covering large areas, 8 to 1Loc. cit. WARD.) THE VIRGINIA AREA, 257 10 cm. long, 5 em. broad at the summit, consisting of 3 to 5 secondary divisions proceeding alternately from each side of the rachis at a uniform angle of about 30°, these again throwing off tertiary branches chiefly from the other side, some of which still further fork or ramify, forming a spreading fan-shaped mat of overlapping fibers covering the rock. The surface of: the rock is very uneven, the fronds form- ing reliefs, and each branch, strand, or subdivision constituting a smooth raised ridge or line. The counterparts of the fronds of course present the opposite features, the reliefs becoming intaglios. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the question whether Dendrophycus really represents a plant. I will only say that Professor Fontaine, who has not only seen all the Seneca and Port- land specimens but has visited the locality and examined their mode of occurrence, does not, any more than did Dr. Newberry, hesitate to pronounce them as of vegetable nature. I reserve my own opinion, if I can be said to have one, until more and stronger evidence shall be produced. : THE VIRGINIA AREA. Fossil plants were early discovered in the rich beds of the Richmond coal field, and mention of them was from time to time made by geolo- gists and other . riters near the beginning of the century. Among the earliest of these mentions was that of Mr. William Maclure, in 1817. After having discussed the primitive formations of the more northern sections, he proceeds to speak of-— ‘‘A range of secondary, extending with some intervals, from the Connecticut to the Rappahannock rivers, in width generally from 15 to 25 miles; bounded on the northeast, at New Haven, by the sea, where it ends to recommence on the south side of Hudson River. * * * This secondary formation is interrupted after it passes Frederickstown, but begins again between Monocacy and Seneca creeks, the northeastern boundaries crossing the Potomac by the west of Cartersville, touches the primitive near the Rappahannock, where it finishes. * * * About 10 or 12 miles west of Richmond, Virginia, there is an independent coal formation, 20 to 25 miles long, and about 10. miles wide; it would not be far distant from the range of the red sandstone formation had it continued so far south; it is situated in an oblong basin, having the whitish freestone, slaty clay, etc., with vegetable impressions, as well as most of the other attendants of that formation.”’ This last hint is of special interest in view of the fact that all the more northern deposits are of the red or brown sandstone, while that of the Virginia basin, in the vicinity of Richmond, is a true coal formation, and Mr. Maclure must therefore have derived this infor- mation largely from paleontological data. In 1821 we find Mr. Thomas Nuttall’ discoursing learnedly with 1Observations on the Geology of the United States of America, by William Maclure, Philadelphia, 1817. (See pp. 39-49.) 2Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., Vol. II, Pt. J, pp. 35-38, 20 GEOL, PT 2 17 258 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. regard to this same formation. Speaking of what he calls ‘‘the second calcareous formation,” he says: In its geographical limits it occupies a position universally to the east of the prim- itive and transition formations. * * * It appears, however, to be destitute of the concomitant minerals, excepting, indeed, it were possible to conceive it in con- nection with the coal basins of Richmond, which I have found on examination to be actually underlaid with a calcareous rock of peculiar appearance. Mr. Heath’s coal mines, and in fact nearly all of them, except those which were in a state of com- bustion, are overlaid by a massive micaceous conglomerate, or grit rock, containing crystals of feldspar like porphyry, in which, besides gigantic culmarii, occur veins of the argentine calcareous spar of Kirwan. * * * In the bituminous slate clay, which, as usual, accompanies this coal, besides impressions of ferns and the sup- posed Equiseta, there are vestiges of some enornious flaccid-leaved gramineous plant, leaves of one of the Scitaminez similar to those of the ginger, and fine casts of a palm resembling the pennate fronds of some species of Zamia or cycad. * * * Although there can remain but little doubt of the continuity of the Floetz limestone we are endeavoring to trace toward the south, still, in consequence of the more recent alluvial deposits, it is not again discernible until we arrive in North Carolina. Relative to his ‘‘ gigantic Culmarii,” he appends a footnote explain- ing that it ‘“‘is an assumed generic name for an assemblage of extinct Zoophytes, one species of which is the Phytolithus striaticulmis of Martin’s Petrificata Derbiensia.” This Phytolithus striaticulmis is a Calamites, and the Culmarii described by Nuttall are undoubtedly the Lquisetum Rogersiz (Bunb.) Schimp. _ Mr. Richard C. Taylor, in 1834,* was somewhat unfortunate in com- bating the views of Nuttall and Maclure relative to the secondary age of the Richmond coal field, and in claiming for it a Carboniferous age. But he was supported by the opinion of Adolphe Brongniart upon a specimen which had been sent to him, which he had identified as Calamites Suckowti Brongn., but of which species he made it a new variety, and in describing it he remarked: La var. 5, dont la surface externe est assez mal conservée, se rapporte cependant 4 cette espéce par sa forme générale et par la ténuité del'écorce. ‘Les cétes sont seule- ment plus convexes, ce qui peut tenir 4 une moindre compression; car ces tiges, qui étaient probablement verticales, paraissent avoir été comprimées dans le sens de leur longueur, et presentent des replis nombreux qui semblent indiquer combien leurs parois étaient minces et flexibles. Cet échantillon est méme fort remarquable sous ce rapport, et prouve que ces tiges étaient fistuleuses comme celles des Equisetum vivans.? In an article by Mr. A. W. Wooldridge,’ president of the Midlothian Mining Company, mention is made of the occurrence of ‘‘ vegetable remains, such as ferns, bark, and knobs of wood found in the slate overlying the coal” in the basin which is now more generally under- stood by the name'of the Richmond coal field. 1 Memoir of a section passing through the bituminous coal field near: Richmond, in Virginia, by Richard C. Taylor: Trans. Geol. Soc. Pennsylvania, Vol. I, p. 275. 2 Histoire des Végétaux Fossiles, Vol. I, 1828, p. 126, 3Geological and statistical notice of the coal mines in the vicinity of Richmond: Am. Jour. Sci., Vol. XLIII, 1842, pp. 1-14 (see pp. 9 and 11). WARD,] THE VIRGINIA AREA. 259 At the Third Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geolo- gists and Naturalists, held at Boston in 1842, Prof. W. B. Rogers read a very important paper On the Age of the Coal Rocks of Eastern Virginia. The second and much larger part of this paper is devoted to the description of the vegetable remains known to him at that date, and of which he enumerates some dozen species. This paper was published in the Transactions of the Association for that year (pp. 298-316), and is accompanied by a plate (pl. xiv), on which three of these species are figured. It is reproduced in the Geology of the Virginias, New York, 1884, pp. 645-658, with the plate. When Sir Charles Lyell was making his journey through the United States, so fruitful in geological results, he visited this coal field in the vicinity of Richmond and made a careful study of the strata and of the remains of animal and vegetable life. He took back with him to Eng- land a quantity of the material which he had collected and handed the vegetable remains over to Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury for determina- tion. Bunbury’s report upon this collection was contributed to the Geological Society of London, and published in 1847. Bunbury de- scribes in this paper about fifteen different forms, a few of which were not the same as those described by Rogers, with whose ‘paper he was acquainted. He shared with Lyell and Rogers the belief that Cala- mites occurred in this formation, and several of the coniferous forms were provisionally referred by him to Sigillaria, Lepidodendron, and Knorria. On June 18, 1849, Mr. Jules Marcou made a communication to the Geological Society of France on the coal of Chesterfield County, Vir- ginia, near Richmond.’ Mr. Marcou had recently visited the Chester- field bed and had observed the abundant plant remains. He collected many of them and discusses their affinities, relying apparently upon Bunbury’s determinations. Nevertheless, he refers these beds to the Keuper, which was at least a shrewd guess. The paper which Professor Rogers read before the Boston Society of Natural History on January 4, 1854, makes mention of the fossil plants of the Richmond coal field, but adds nothing to what he had previously said on this subject. His statement, however, that ‘‘in the belt in Virginia, toward the Potomac River * * * he had met, in the more sandy rocks, vegetable impressions which, although obscure, are strongly suggestive of the leaves of Zamites,” furnishes a datum point for future investigations. It is to be regretted that he did not definitely locate these discoveries. One additional line describ- ing the exact spot at which these remains were obseryed might have saved weeks of patient search to the student of the present generation. 1Description of fossil plants from the coal field near Richmond, Virginia, by C.J. F. Bunbury: Quart. Jour. Geol, Soc. London, Vol. III, Pt. I, pp. 281-288, pls. x, xi. Soe 2Note sur la houille du comté de Chesterfield, prés de Richmond (Etat de Virginie), par J. Marcou: Bull. Soe. géol. de France, 2d series, Vol. VI, 1848-1849, pp. 572-575. 3 Proceedings, Vol. V, July, 1854, pp. 14-18. 260 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. Mr. Jules Marcou, as we have seen, had visited this region and made a small collection of fossil plants. Some of these he took with him on a visit to Europe and showed them to the eminent paleobotanist, Prof. Oswald Heer, of Zurich. In his Geology of North America’ he introduces a translation of Professor Heer’s report upon this collec- ‘tion. It contains nothing additional to the forms described by Rogers and Bunbury. At the Philadelphia meeting of the American Institute of Mining” Engineers, in February, 1878, Mr. Oswald J. Heinrich read an elabo- rate paper on the Mesozoic Formation in Virginia, which was published in the Transactions.?. He gives numerous sections in the principal mines of the Richmond coal field, mentioning the occurrence of plants, and on page 264 he attempts an enumeration of the species, basing it on determinations made for him by Prof. C. E. Hall, of the University of Pennsylvania, to whom the material collected was referred. The list is short, and the names the old erroneous ones of Brongniart, Bunbury, and Rogers. Prof. William M. Fontaine commenced his important researches in this field early in the seventies and contributed a preliminary paper*® in 1879. This paper is chiefly geological and covers a wide field, dis- cussing the relations of the older to the younger Mesozoic, but it is based largely on the evidence furnished by the flora, and that of the Richmond coal field receives special treatment (pp. 37-39). This paper was the natural forerunner of his Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia,* with which we have already had much to do, and which is unquestionably the most important contribution that has yet been made to the flora of the American Trias. It forms one of the smaller monographs of the United States Geological Survey, contain- ing 144 pages of text and 54 plates. As stated by the author, ‘‘it is based upon the study of a number of plants obtained after several years of diligent search in the older Mesozoic strata of Virginia.” The number of species, or rather of distinct plants, that are here described and figured amounts to 45, which will be seen to be a large increase over those hitherto known. LEight of these species were already known from other localities under established names; 4 more of this class are referred to different genera or species, making 12 not confined to Virginia. Of the remaining 33, which are so confined, 9 have close affinities with species already described. It thus appears that considerably over half of the entire number are peculiar to the locality and have no weight in determining its horizon. 1Geology of North America, with Two Reports on the Prairies of Arkansas and Texas, the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico, and the Sierra Nevada of California, originally made for the United States Government; by Jules Marcou; Zurich, 1858; p. 16. 2Vol. VI, pp. 227-274. 3 8 Notes on the Mesozoic of Virginia: Am. Jour. Sci., 8d series, Vol. XVII, January, 1879, pp. 25-55, 4Mon. U.S. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, Washington, 1883, 4°. WARD.] THE VIRGINIA AREA. 261 One of the most important purposes subserved by this work is that of correcting the determination of the forms that had previously been described. Professor Fontaine undertook, in the preparation of this work, to make careful comparisons of all the forms in his collection with the figures that had already been published, and he went to great pains to indicate those species occurring in beds of similar age in Europe and other parts of the world which were capable of being com- pared with those of Virginia. This was possible in a considerable number of cases, and we are, therefore, placed in a position to consider the age of this formation from the point of view of. vegetable paleon- tology in its relation to older and better-established deposits. In view of its importance, Professor Fontaine’s work must, therefore, serve as the basis, or general starting point, from which not only this discus- sion but the general discussion of the Triassic plants of North America will proceed: Professor Fontaine did not restrict his investigations and compari- sons to the Oolite of Yorkshire, as Rogers and Bunbury had done, but availed himself of all the extant literature upon the subject relating to the fossil plants of all the formations of Europe and other parts of the world whose geological position is not far removed from that to which the American beds had already been referred. The important researches of August Schenk upon the fossil flora of the Mesozoic of Bavaria, especially of Franconia, in the vicinity of Baireuth, pre- viously known to him only imperfectly through Count von Minster’s Beitriige and two papers by D. Brauns, had opened up a new and important field and furnished a very much broader basis for the study of the analogous floras the world over. Nathorst had also contributed in an important way to the study of the Rhetic flora of southern Sweden. Heer had investigated the Oolitic floras of the Arctic regions and Siberia, and Feistmantel had published his exhaustive works on the Gondwana system of India. All these, and other important works, were consulted by Professor Fontaine, so that he was in position to revise and correct the works of Rogers, Bunbury, Emmons, and Hitchcock upon the fossil flora of the American Mesozoic. It was thus found that the Virginia Mesozoic flora did not corre- spond with anything like the same completeness as had been supposed to the Oolite of Yorkshire. Many of the most important species which had been depended upon to establish its Oolitic age were dis- covered to have been wrongly named and to belong to different genera from those to which they had been assigned. This revision operated in two directions, viz: primarily, in showing that those who had regarded the Richmond coal field as Carboniferous or Permian, or had supported their views upon the supposed discov- eries in these fields of such Carboniferous plants as Calamites, Sigil-— laria, and Lepidodendron, were mistaken in these determinations, and 262 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. that no such ancient forms exist in the Mesozoic formation; and, sec- ondly, in showing that many of the species referred to the Vorishize flora are not identical with those forms and are either new species belonging to the same orders or genera or are species nearly or quite identical with those of the Rhetic beds of Europe. So that while upon the whole the revised flora indicates that these deposits are more ancient than the Oolite of England, at the same time it does not indi- cate an age having anything like the antiquity of the true coal floras of this country and of Europe. Forms supposed to belong to Calamites were shown to belong to Equisetum, having the broad trunks and great size of those Equise- tums which occur in the Trias.. The supposed Sigillarias and Lepi- dodendra were shown to belong to the Cycadacez or Conifers, prob- ably to the genus Palissya, which is strictly Mesozoic. On the other hand, the important Pecopteris whitbiensis and Neuropteris linnww- Folia, supposed to be common to the Oolitic flora and that of Virginia, are both shown to belong to the genus Acrostichites, which is Rhetic, and the equally important Pecopteris bullatus, from which so much had been argued, is referred by Professor Fontaine to an entirely new genus of his own, viz, Mertensides, by which it loses altogether its diagnostic value. These are merely examples of the searching char- acter of Professor Fontaine’s investigations and of the important alter- ations in the data for forming a conclusion with regard to the age of these deposits. After describing the species of the Virginia flora, Professor Fon- taine sets forth in a table of distribution the general elements of this flora as compared with those of other countries. Forty-two species had been enumerated, of which 21, or just half, prove to be new to science, or at least peculiar to Views. In the table appended to this paper it will be shown that several of these have affinities with other plants whose geological age is known, therefore are not without diagnostic value from a geological standpoint. Professor Fontaine’ could find no forms identical with any that had hitherto been described from any part of the Trias, but 4 of his species were allied to species of the Trias. Only 2 of them were shown to be identical with any plants of the Jurassic, and neither of these belong to the Oolite of Yorkshire, but there are 5 species related to Jurassic forms. With the Rhetic flora the affinities seem closer, 4 species having been identified with Rhetic plants of Europe, and 8 others are shown to be closely related to such. Professor Fontaine’s table is carefully dis- cussed by him, each species being taken up and its geological bearings considered. Without following him through this discussion, we will content ourselves by quoting a few of his concluding remarks: It is clear then from these facts that we must consider this flora as not older than the Rhetic. The only question is whether or not its strong Jurassic features ought to + WARD.] THE VIRGINIA AREA. 2638 cause us to regard it as at least Lower Liassic in age. I think that it is fully as much entitled to be regarded as of Liassic age as is the flora of the Rajamahal group of India. Feistmantel and Zigno think that the age of this group is that of the Lias. Taking everything into consideration, the flora of the older Mesozoic of Virginia is, of the European floras, nearest to that of Theta, near Baireuth, in Franconia (p. 96). Some authors hold that the Rheetic beds form the uppermost of the Triassic strata. Others think that they are transition beds, having more affinity with the Lower Lias. The latter view will, I think, be justified by a study of the flora, and I have, in this memoir, assumed its correctness (p. 128). This important work of Professor Fontaine’s especially attracted the attention of the late distinguished directcr of the Austrian Geo- logical Survey, D. Stur, who -had found at a place called Lunz, in Austria, a deposit yielding fossil plants having a very remarkable resemblance to those of the Virginia flora. Unable to satisfy himself with sufficient certainty by the study of the figures and descriptions of Professor Fontaine, Director Stur made application to Professor Fontaine and received, through the intervention of the United States Geological Survey, a good series of specimens of the Virginia fossils.’ In the Proceedings of the Geological Survey of Austria, published in 1888, Director Stur gave a brief account! of the results of his com- parisons of the Virginia plants with those of Lunz. The general con- clusion is that they are identical in age, many of the species being the same. But Stur regards the Lunz flora as Keuper and not Rhetic, and as nearly equivalent to that of Raibl and Stuttgart. He had arrived at this conclusion by a preliminary study already given to the flora of Lunz.? This paper, as he admits, was only a Prodromus, and contains sim- ply a list of the genera and species in systematic order, but no descrip- tions or figures. It bears date 1885, or two years later than Professor Fontaine’s monograph. Therefore it is obvious that all Stur could do under the recognized laws of nomenclature would be to accept Pro- fessor Fontaine’s species and genera in so far as they were new and identical with those of Lunz; although, of course, he would be author- ized to point out any error in determination tending to show that Pro- fessor Fontaine had erroneously identified any of his plants with those of other deposits in Europe or elsewhere, or to show that any of his new species were not such, but were identical with species already described. We are therefore surprised to find that in a number of cases, as for example Speirocarpus, Heeria, etc., Stur created new genera of his own, and undertook ata later date to substitute them for the genera of Professor Vontaine. This, it is clear, can not be allowed by the laws of nomenclature. Pseudodaneopsis and Merten- sides must stand and the Lunz plants be placed in them. 1Die Lunzer- (Lettenkohlen-) Flora in den ‘‘Older Mesozoic Beds of the Coal Field of Eastern Virginia,” von D. Stur: Verhandl. k.- k. geol. Reichsanstalt, Wien, Jahrg. 1888, pp. 203-217. 2 Die obertriadische Flora der Lunzer-Schichten und des bitumindsen Schiefers yon Raibl, von D. Stur: Sitzungsber. K. Akad. Wiss. Wien, math.-nat. Cl., Vol. CXI, 1885, pp. 93-103. 264 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. As confirming, so far as it goes, the views of Stur regarding the somewhat lower position of the Richmond coal field and that of North Carolina, may be fitly noted the discovery in the Lower Trias of the Vosges (*‘Grés bigarré de Saint-Germain prés Luxeuil”), by M. Des- pierres, of a specimen identified by Zeiller’ with Professor Fontaine’s Acrostichites rhombifolius rarinervis. From this and other indica- tions Zeiller is inclined to regard the American deposits as Triassic rather than Rhetic. This opinion, after noting the views of Professor Heer contained in the letter to Mr. Marcou, already mentioned, he expresses in the following words: Je serais, en résumé, trés disposé 4 accepter l’assimilation de Heer de préférence 4 celle de M. Fontaine, c’est 4 dire que je placerais les couches en question dans le trias supérieur plutét que dans le rhétien. This whole subject was. discussed quite at length by Mr. Jules Marcou in 1890,” and he takes occasion to go over the history of his own investigations along with those of others. Very little is added to our knowledge of the subject, but a letter from Zeiller, which he inserts on page 172, contains his determinations of Mr. Marcou’s col- lection, sent in 1849 to the Jardin des Plantes, and which had lain there during this long period without attention. It contained eight or ten species, none of which were new. Some specimens of fossil wood were collected by Mr. W J McGee, near Taylorsville on the South Anna River in Hanover County, who supposed them to belong to the Potomac formation, and they were included in Dr. Knowlton’s paper on the Fossil Wood and Lignite of the Potomac Formation.’ As all the other specimens from that formation had proved to be of Sequoian type and been referred to the genus Cupressinoxylon, there was a suspicion that these might represent an older formation. I therefore decided to visit the locality at the first opportunity, which presented itself on the occasion of the return of our expedition, pres- ently to be recounted, over the Triassic beds of Virginia in 1890. On June 18 of that year, accompanied by Professor Fontaine and Mr. Charles S. Prosser, I examined the bed on the South Anna River and made further collections of the wood. The Trias appeared at several points in that vicinity, sometimes in the form of red shales, and the wood in question occurred in a superficial deposit, probably Lafayette, immediately overlying the Trias. It could not have come.from the Potomac farther to the east, and had undoubtedly weathered out of the Trias. ; During the month of June, 1890, an excursion was made by Pro- 1Sur la présence dans le grés bigarré des Vosges de 1’Acrostichides rhombifolius Fontaine, par R. Zeiller: Bull. Soc. géol. de France, 3d series, Vol. XVI, 1888, pp. 698-699. 2The Triassic flora of Richmond, Virginia: Am. Geologist, Vol. V, March, 1890, pp. 160-174. ’ Bull. U. 8. Geol. Survey No. 56, 1889, p. 50, pl. vii, figs. 2-5. WARD. ] THE VIRGINIA AREA. 265 fessor Fontaine, Mr. Charles 8. Prosser, and myself over the Triassic formation in Virginia. After visiting the Seneca sandstones, and tracing the approach of the Trias along the Monocacy River to the Potomac, we crossed the river at Point of Rocks and proceeded to Leesburg, skirting the western margin of the belt which consists entirely of conglomerates early called ‘‘Potomac marble,” but known locally only as ‘calico rock.” At Leesburg the trap appears not in the form of ridges as in New England and on the Hudson, but rather as a bowlder formation covering the surface; nevertheless, along Goose Creek it is heavily bedded and extensively quarried, there called ‘“‘granite.” Near points of contact of the trap with the red shales these latter become lighter colored and in a few places some- what dark and carbonaceous. The nature of our expedition did not allow us time to search in these darker shales for fossil plants, but it is possible that such may occur and that future researches may reveal them. Several such localities were noted for this purpose. At Brents- ville heavy beds of sandstone of excellent quality for building pur- poses occur and promising quarries have been opened. Several of these were visited by us in company with Mr. J. L. Sprogle, the general manager, who offered us special facilities for examining them. In some respects this stone seems to excel that of the quarries in Maryland, but in all the Potomac beds the color is a more lively red than in the Connecticut Valley. A short distance east of Brentsville we found in lighter shale a fossil plant, Chetrolep’s Muensteri (Schenk) Schimp. We also found near Weaversville specimens of an Estheria and scales of fishes. Near the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers and southward as far as Orange, notably at Culpeper, a marked difference occurs in the conglomerate from what we find at Point of Rocks and Leesburg, the material cemented in the sandstone consisting of bowl- ders of considerable size. We named this the Culpeper conglomerate. It is very similar to what may be seen in the Connecticut Valley and also in the vicinity of New Haven, being the same noted by Professor Dana on the east side of Pond Ridge. Professor Fontaine and myself found this conglomerate at a number of points in the Connecticut Valley. On this excursion we traced the Trias to Barboursville, where Pro- fessor Rogers supposed it to end, and where, in fact, it does disappear; but proceeding thence to Charlottesville we were surprised to find it in the valley of the Rivanna, only a short distance from that place, and a few miles north of Monticello. From Charlottesville we pro- ceeded to the coal field, striking it at Manakin or Dover Mines. We visited Carbon Hill and all the mires on the left bank of the James; crossed at Boscabell’s ferry and proceeded to Midlothian and Clover Hill, examining with minuteness the material thrown out at all the shafts in this region. The most promising places for fossil plants in 266 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. that part of the field were the Gowrie shaft and the new Stonehenge shaft, near Midlothian, and the Bright Hope and Raccoon shafts at Clover Hill. Nevertheless, many other interesting places were noted, and in the following September these were all visited by Professor Fontaine and collections made. In the course of the more recent extended investigations that have been made in the Richmond coal field by Prof. N. 8. Shaler and his field parties,’ Mr. J. B. Woodworth, in 1896, made a small collection of fossil wood in Chesterfield County, at three localities given as near Skinquarter Station, near Otterdale, and south of Moseley Junction, ‘ at somewhat different horizons. This material was submitted to Dr. F. H. Knowlton for determination, and his results were published as an appendix to Professor Shaler’s paper.” Dr. Knowlton distinguished two species of Araucarioxylon, A. virginianum and a new species which he names .A.. Woodworthi, both of which are fully described and illustrated. It will be noted that the first of these species is the same as that from Taylorsville in Hanover County (see supra, p. 264). The other species is closely allied to A. arizonicum of the West (see infra, pp. 278, 319). THE NORTH CAROLINA AREA. Our knowledge of the existence of a coal basin in North Carolina dates back to a very remote period, and the occurrence of vegetable remains in this region was, known almost as early as in any of the others considered. Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, in his first report upon the geology of North Carolina,* in speaking of the coal fields of that State, mentioned (page 142) the occurrence of vegetable remains. He says: The vegetables are few in number, and differ from those of the coal rocks of Penn- sylvania or the flora of the Carboniferous system. An Equisetites differing from EZ. communis is the only one of this genus I have seen. A Lycopodites, and other allied forms, are all I have yet found, except a naked and rather spinous vegetable, which is unknown in the Carboniferous rocks. Itis a cellular cryptogamous plant. This is very common and abundant at Madison, and one or two layers of slate are covered with it at Evans Mills. The roots of vegetables, in-the fire clay, are thin, narrow, ribbon-like tissues, and have lost their vegetable structure. Their thinness and com- pressibility show, however, that the roots were spongy, of a loose texture, and were ke 10? quatic. Later on in the same report, speaking of the Dan River coal meas- ures (p. 147), he says: - Immediately above this bed of brecciated conglomerate there is‘one of the finest exhibitions of an ancient forest in this country. It consists partly of roots of trees 1Geology of the Richmond Basin, Virginia, by N. 8. Shaler and J. B. Woodworth: Nineteenth Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. Survey, Pt. II, 1899, pp. 385-519. 2Report on some fossil wood from the Richmond Basin, Virginia, by F. H. Knowlton: Op. cit., pp. 516-519, pl. lii. 3Executive Document No. 13, Report of Professor Emmons on his Geological Survey of North Carolina, Raleigh, 1852. WARD.) THE NORTH CAROLINA AREA. 267 changed into lignite, and partly of perfectly silicified trunks of trees, exceeding two feet in diameter. The soil in which the majority of these trees grew is still con- cealed. Segments of their trunks stand out of the soft rock, inclining.at an angle to the horizon, but lean ina direction contrary to the dip of the rock. A road cuts through the strata in which the forest grew. All that remains of it are the trunks; it was impossible to find a leaf or stem of herbage or fruit. The softer and more perishable parts and organs are destroyed by unknown agencies. Perhaps some for- tunate blow of the hammer may bring to light the leaves and fruit. The structure of these trunks prove them to belong to the natural family of Coniferee, or the family to which the pines, spruces, and hemlocks belong. The trees extend for half a mile or more, and no one, on seeing the number, can doubt that here grew a forest when the rocks were forming. Similar trunks have been found at Madison, and pieces of trunks occur upon Deep River, near Evans’s bridge, and another forest of the same character upon Drowning Creek, in Richmond County. They occupy the same position in the series. We next find a casual mention by Professor Rogers in the Proceed- ings of the Boston Society of Natural History for January 4, 1854,1 that he had found in the summer of 1850 in the coal rocks of Deep River, North Carolina, several of the same plants which he was describ- ing from Virginia. Among the plants mentioned as having been seen there by him were Lyuisetwm columnare, a Zamites, and a plumose plant referred to Lycopodites, strongly resembling Z. Well¢amsonis of the Yorkshire coast. At the Albany meeting of the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science in 1856, Dr. Ebenezer Emmons read a paper entitled: Permian and Triassic Systems of North Carolina. This paper was published only by title in the Proceedings of the Association, but a brief abstract of it occurs in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Jour- nal for 1857, in which, in addition to animal remains, he mentions the occurrence in the North Carolina deposits, regarded by him as Keuper, of a variety of plants, among which he enumerates some belonging to the Cycadacee, a Voltzia, and also a supposed Walchia. The same year (1856) appeared Dr. Emmons’s Geological Report of the Midland Counties of North Carolina, which contains the first impor- tant mention of the fossil plants of the North Carolina basin. In this report Dr. Emmons, besides giving the most exhaustive geological account of the North Carolina deposits that had thus far been made, paid special attention to both the vegetable and animal remains. The former he supposed to occur in two somewhat distinct formations, viz, the so-called Permian and the Trias. His Permian deposits holding vegetable remains occur along the Deep River at Haywood in Chatham County, near Wadesboro in Anson, and also some 15 miles south- west of Troy in Montgomery. He mentions the remains of petrified and silicified wood, and seems to regard these as the ‘‘ most important vegetable remains” that are found at all the above-mentioned localities; also at Jones Falls, and in the. Miocene of Wayne County, where they 1Vol. V, p. 15. 2Vol. V, p. 370. 268 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. appear to have been washed out of the so-called Permian and stranded on the surface. This silicified wood may be the same as that which had several times previously been’ referred to,’ but these previously men- tioned fragments occurred along the Neuse River, and the lignites described in the second paper mentioned agree quite well with those found in the Potomac formation of Virginia. The vegetable impres- sions occur chiefly in the deep coal shaft at Egypt, on Deep River; also at Evans Bridge, and on the Dan River at Madison, Stokes County. Among them he enumerates several fucoids, referred to Chondrites, besides vascular cryptogams, such as Equisetum, ferns, and some forms referred to the Lycopodiacee. The treatment of these plants occurs in Chapter XX XIX, pp. 283-293, pl. i-iil. A much larger number of plant forms are described by Dr. Emmons from the overlying Trias, which he identifies with the Keuper of Europe, and regards as equivalent to the coal shale of the Thitringer- wald. These also occur, for the most part, on Deep River, principally at Jones Falls, which is also called Lockville; also in the blue slate at Ellingtons, and in the soft reddish marls near Haywood. These plants include a number of ferns, Cycadacez, Lycopodiacez, Conifere, and Equisetacee. It is proper to remark that recent determinations of these various forms have changed the views expressed by Dr. Emmons in regard to their nature and systematic position, and also that Professor Fontaine does not see any reason for considering the so-called Permian forms as indicating a distinct age from those of the Trias. To these vegetable remains are devoted four double plates of very well-drawn and well-printed figures. A notice of Professor Emmons’s North Carolina Report, relating to the Trias, which appeared in the American Journal of Science for November, 1857,” signed by the initials C. D., which are understood to have been those of Professor C. Dewey, is chiefly important in con- taining what purports to be a translation of a letter from Prof. Oswald Heer, who had made a somewhat careful study of Dr. Emmons’s fig- ures, and, as it would seem, of specimens which had been shown him by Mr. Jules Marcou, and the latter gentleman states* that the letter itself was originally addressed to him and was subsequently submitted to Dr. Emmons, who placed it in the hands of Professor Dewey. It is the same letter to which reference has already been made, a transla- tion of which appeared in Mr. Marcou’s Geology of North America, at page 16; but the two translations differ in some rather important respects. In Part VI of his American Geology, Chapters VII and XV, Dr. Emmons has reproduced, almost without change, this discussion of 1See mention by Olmsted in Am. Jour. Sci., Vol. V, 1822, p. 261, and Vol. XIV, 1828, p. 250. 22d series, Vol. XXIV, pp. 427-429. 2 Am, Geologist, Vol. V, March, 1890, p. 165. waREs THE NORTH CAROLINA AREA. 269 the fossil flora of the Carolina Trias, making, however, a few additions and corrections. The illustrations are somewhat superior to those of the former work, and a considerable number were added. This volume bears date 1857. Nothing further was done with this North Carolina flora until Pro- fessor Fontaine undertook, in his Older Mesozoic Flora, 1883, a careful revision of Dr. Emmons’s work as published in his American Geology. This forms Part III of that important monograph, and is, as may well be judged, a very welcome contribution to this general subject, bring- ing the determinations down carefully to date and eliminating the greater part of Dr. Emmons’s mistakes. It proved conclusively that the North Carolina basin is very closely related to that of Virginia, since of the 40 species enumerated in the North Carolina flora, 9 only are peculiar to that State, while 16 occur in Virginia. Six of his plates are devoted to reproductions of Dr. Emmons’s figures, without, it must be confessed, any artistic improvement in them; but this seemed necessary in order to place the discussion in a compact form’ and in a clear light. ‘As indicative of the probable age of the coal plants, he says, at the - outset: Most of Emmons’s plants come from above the horizon of the Mesoaoic coal beds of North Carolina; hence, if this coal be on the same horizon as the Virginia Meso- soic coal, as it probably is, most of the North Carolina plants must come somewhat higher up in the series of older Mesozoic strata than those from Virginia. Nearly all of the latter come from the beds immediately associated with the Mesozoic coal of Virginia (p. 97). , Referring to the bituminous shale groups, which Dr. Emmons regarded as Permian, he says: This bituminous shale group comes some distance above the base of the North Carolina Mesozoic series of strata, and, as stated, most probably stands on the horizon of the strata yielding most of the Virginia plants (p. 98). On page 121 he further remarks: It is not necessary to dwell upon the character of the strata of the two North Carolina areas. It is evident that they havea close resemblance to each other and to the. Mesozoic beds of Virginia. The physical and stratigraphical resemblances are sufficient, without the evidence of the plants, to indicate that the North Carolina and the Virginia Mesozoic strata are of the same age, and that they were formed under similar conditions. On pages 122 and 123 he gives a table of distribution similar to that given for the Virginia flora. This table certainly shows a remarkable similarity between the two floras. For example, only 9 species of the North Carolina plants are peculiar to that State, while 15 oceur also in the Virginia flora, and one other, Lonchopteris oblonga, is closely allied to L. virginiensis. None of these forms oceur in the Trias of any other country, nor are any allied to any Triassic plants. “Two species occur in the Jurassic of other parts of the world, and 6 270 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. are allied to Jurassic species, but when we come to the Rhetic we find 7 identical with, and 8 others closely related to, typical Rhetic forms. The evidence of Rhetic age is therefore very strong. The results of this table are then analyzed and thoroughly discussed, and from the data here presented and from other sources he arrives at the following general conclusion : European authors, and especially Schimper, often call attention to the strong resemblance between the Rheetic and Lower Jurassic floras, the likeness to the flora of the Lower Oolite of England being especially striking. In accordance with this fact, the presence of a marked Jurassic element in the flora of these Mesozoic beds, both in North Carolina and Virginia, is of itself an evidence that they can not be older than Rheetic. We are, then, I think, entitled to consider that the older Mesozoic flora of North Carolina and Virginia is most probably Rheetic in age, and certainly not older (p. 128). The letter of M. R. Zeiller to Mr. Jules Marcou, published in the paper to which reference was made (supra, p. 264), contains a remark which it is appropriate to quote here in connection with Dr. Emmons’s determinations and Professor Fontaine’s conclusions drawn from the original figures. M. Zeiller says: . In studying the excellent figures of Emmons, very roughly reproduced by Fontaine, I have been led to contest several of the attributions and determinations of the latter, more especially about the Albertia, which Fontaine wants to make an Otozamites. The Albertia latifolia of Emmons is certainly an Albertia related to both Alb. latifolia and Alb. Brauni; and until now all the Albertize have been found in Europe in the Buntersandstein or Lower Trias. ! It is interesting to know that the original specimen was found in the collection at Williamstown, redescribed and refigured by Professor Fontaine, who adheres to his formerly expressed opinion that the plant ‘is certainly not an Albertia,” comparing it with Otozanvites Beanti (L. and H.) Brongn. (see infra, pp. 298, 299, Pl. XLII, Figs. 5, 6). Professor Fontaine stated in the beginning of this revision’ that on inquiry he had learned ‘‘that Dr. Emmons’s collections of plants were destroyed during the late war,” and it was supposed that none of his specimens were in existence, but in the spring of 1890 a collection, long ago received by the Smithsonian Institution from Mr. Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia, consisting chiefly of shells, was examined by Prof. William H. Dall and found to contain a few fossil plants, which were turned over by him to the department of fossil plants of the National Museum, and thus came into my hands. Among these plants, most of which were from the Newcastle coal fields of England, were several specimens that Dr. Emmons had.sent to Mr. Lea from North Carolina, and with them was a letter from the former to the latter, dated July 12, 1856, mentioning these plants, and setting forth some of the conclu- sions to which a study of the coal fields of the State had led him. The plants bore provisional names, but it was thought best that they be 1Am, Geologist, Vol. V, 1890, p. 172. 2Mon. U. §. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, 1883, p. 97. WARD.] THE NORTH CAROLINA AREA. O71 sent to Professor Fontaine for his inspection. This was done, and I introduce here his report upon them, as some of the results are impor- tant, and no better opportunity may present itself for their publication: ; Noet, Virarnia, July 8, 1890. Prof. Luster F. Warp. Sim: I have examined the fossil plants of the Older Mesozoic (Trias) of North Caro- lina, which were formerly sent by Dr. Emmons to Dr. Isaac Lea, and which are now in possession of the United States National Museum. I find among them the following forms: ' Nos. 1 and 2. Asterocarpus virginiensis obtusiloba (in fruit). No. 3. Fucoid, not capable of identification. Nos. 4 and 5. Ctenophyllum Braunianum var. # Gdpp. No. 6. Apparently a root. No. 7. Specimen not capable of identification. No. 8. Equisetum, too vague to identify. Nos. 9, 10, and 11. Specimens not capable of specific identification. No. 12. Cheirolepis diffusa. Nos. 1 and 2 are fruiting forms of Asterocarpus virginiensis obtusilobus. This species, before the discovery of this specimen, had been known only from the locality Clover Hil! in the Richmond coal field. Emmons does not appear to have either figured or described it among the forms given in his American Geology. Possibly he may have identified it with his Pecopteris falcatus—= Laccopteris Emmonsi. No. 3. This is a cast of a fucoid which is too imperfect to be determined. There are in the collection several other specimens showing vague imprints of fucoids. They are too imperfect to call for further notice. Nos. 4 and 5. These specimens are Ctenophyllum Braunianum var. 6 Gopp.,' or the form with shorter leaflets. This plant is figured and described in Emmons’s Ameri- can Geology as Pterozamites obtusifolius. From an inspection of the figures, I came some time ago to the conclusion that no good reason existed for separating this plant: from Géppert’s variety 8 of Ctenophyllum Braunianum. An examination of the plant itself confirms the conclusion. Emmons seems at first to have identified this species with Rogers’s Zamites obtusifolius, and the labels accompanying these specimens bear this name. Later he regarded it as Pterozamites. No. 6. This is marked by Emmons as coming from the coal shale, in which the fossil plants do not seem to be so abundantand in such variety as in the shales much higher up. The label with this specimen gives the name Gymnocaulus alternatus, but the impression does not show any significant character. It looks more like a root than anything else. , , No. 7. As indicated by the label accompanying this specimen, Emmons regarded it as a Lepacyclotes, but it is too imperfect to show anything definite. No. 8. This is an Equisetum, an imprint of the outer portion, but it is too indefi- nite to permit identification. It is most probably £. Rogersii. Nos. 9, 10, and 11. These specimens are all too imperfect to permit their identifi- cation with certainty. No. 12. Thisisa fine specimen, called by Emmons Walchia diffusus. With thisname he gives a figure of the plant in his American Geology, pl. iii, fig. 2. From an exami- nation of this figure, no specimens of the plant being accessible to me, I came with doubt to the conclusion (see Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia, p. 106) that the plant is a Palissya. An examination, however, of a specimen of this form shows that it is not a Palissya, and also that it isnot a Walchia. It requires a study of more than one specimen of the plant satisfactorily to make out its character, for although a fine specimen, it does not show distinctly some features, All that can now be said of it is that it is probably a new genus, in foliage at east, intermediate between Cheirolepis 272 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. and Pachyphyllum, standing nearer the former. As this single specimen does not . suffice to establish a new genus, it is perhaps best provisionally to regard the plant as a Cheirolepis. In that case it might be called Cheirolepis diffusa. In this connection it is proper to-state that although Emmons says that he made a rich collection of the North Carolina Older Mesozoic fossil plants, I know of the exist- ence of no collection of these plants available for study. ' Accompanying these plants of Dr. Lea there are several fine specimens of ganoid fishes obtained by Emmons from the shales associated with the coal of North Caro- lina. They are worthy of careful study. Respectfully, Wm. M. Fonrains. Dr. F. H. Knowlton received from Prof. I. C. Russell some pieces of fossil wood from the Trias of North Carolina, from which he made six slides. These have not thus far been figured, but after an examina- tion of the slides Dr. Knowlton was able to make to Professor Russell the following statement, which the latter published in his Correlation Paper on the Newark System. At my request Dr. Knowlton has kindly drawn the figures and furnished the following descriptive notes: DESCRIPTION OF A SMALL COLLECTION OF FOSSIL WOOD FROM THE TRIASSIC AREA OF NORTH CAROLINA. By F. H. Kwow ron. In 1885 Prof. I. C. Russell, then of the United States Geological Survey, submitted to me a small collection of fossil wood made by himself in the Triassic area of North Carolina. He requested a brief report on this material, which I made, and which he published in his Newark System! in 1892. Recently Professor Ward, who is engaged on a systematic review of the fossil plants of the Triassic of this coun- try, has asked for a more detailed description of this wood for use in his report. The following notes are the result of this study. This collection consists of about a dozen specimens, representing the following localities: Triassic strata between Walnut Cove and Germantown; 1 mile west of Polkton; and Lockville, all in North Carolina. None of the material is well preserved, the structure having suffered greatly -in the process of fossilization. Six of the best-pre- served pieces were selected and thin sections cut from them. Of these, three proved to have been so poorly preserved as to be worthless for purposes of study, and the results obtained are therefore based on the three remaining pieces. I stated in my brief report to Professor Russell’ that, with the possi- ble exception of one piece, I was able to identify them with Avaucarioxy- lon arizonicum Knowlton,” a species described from the Shinarump group of Arizona and New Mexico, and since detected, or at most 1 Correlation papers—The Newark system: Bull. U. 8. Geol. Survey No. 85, 1892, p. 29. 2Proc. U. 8. Nat. Mus., Vol. XI, 1888, p. 3, pl. i, figs. 1-5. KNOWLTON. ] TRIASSIC WOOD FROM NORTH CAROLINA. 278 only a slightly divergent variety of it, from the copper mines near Abiquiu, New Mexico.’ Since preparing this report for Professor Russell I again looked over the slides in connection with the study of a number of pieces of wood from the Richmond Basin, Virginia, a report of which is given in the Nineteenth Annual.? Among the Rich- mond Basin specimens I found one having the same structure as those from North Carolina, which had previously been referred to Arauca- rioxylon virginianum. Although very close to the species from New Mexico and Arizona, there seem to be slight, but thus far constant, differences, and I gave the name Araucarioxylon Woodworthi to the specimen from the Richmond Basin. A more complete study of the material from North Carolina confirms this view, and it is so referred here. In 1889 I described, under the name of Araucarioxylon virginianum,s a piece of fossil wood that was supposed to have come from the Potomac formation at Taylorsville, Virginia. Subsequent investigation has shown that this specimen came from Triassic strata, the locality where it was found being almost the only known place where the Potomac formation rests on the Triassic. The specimen from North Carolina mentioned in my report to Professor Russell as doubtful appears to belong to this species, although not agreeing in every particular. The following is a brief discussion of the two species based on the North Carolina material: ARAUCARIOXYLON Woopwortui Knowlton. Pl. XXXVII, Figs. 7-9. 1899. Araucarioxylon Woodworthi Knowlton: Nineteenth Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. Sur- vey, Pt. II, p. 517, pl. lii, figs. 1-6. As may be seen in comparing the figures here given with those accompanying the original description of A. arizonicum,* the agree- ment between the woods from North Carolina and those from New Mexico and Arizona is very close indeed. The annual ring is very faint and is detected with difficulty. It consists of only two or three rows of smaller, thicker-walled cells. The wood cells are seen to be equally thick-walled from both localities. The wood cells in the Richmond Basin specimen are also identical. The medullary rays in A. arizonicum are composed of 1 to 22 super- imposed cells, whereas in this species, both from the Richmond Basin and from North Carolina, the number ranges from 1 to 12, the usual number being perhaps 4 to 6. The rays are short-celled in all. The bordered pits as seen on the radial walls of the wood cells are 1 Proc. U. §. Nat. Mus., Vol. XIII, 1890, p. 285. 2Nineteenth Ann. Rept. U. §. Geol. Survey, Pt. II, 1899, pp. 516-519, pl. lii. 8 Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 56, p. 50, pl. vii, figs. 2-5. 4Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. XI, 1888, p. 3, pl. i, figs. 1-5. 20 GEOL, PT 2 18 974 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. in a single series, or rarely in two series. In the Richmond Basin speci- ‘men there is one, rarely two, and very rarely three series. When in a single row they are approximately circular; when in two or three rows they are very slightly compressed and hexagonal. In tangential section the ends of the medullary rays are of course shown. They are seen to be composed of from 1 to about 12 super- imposed cells. The wood cells as seen in this section are without the bordered pits that form so important a character in A. arizonicum. As I took occasion to say in my report on the Richmond Basin material, this species is very closely allied to, if not indeed: identical with, Araucarioxylon arizonicum, differing in having a less number of cells in each medullary ray, and particularly in the absence of bordered pits in the tangential walls of the wood cells. These are, however, not important differences, and a larger series of specimens might show the breaking down of this character, but for the present, at least, it may be regarded as distinct. Locality.—Road between Walnut Cove and Germantown, North Carolina; collected by I. C. Russell, August 21, 1885. Near Lock- ville, North Carolina, collected by I. C. Russell, July 25, 1885. ARAUCARIOXYLON VIRGINIANUM Knowlton. Pl. XXXVII, Figs. 1-6. 1889. Araucariozylon virginianum Kn.: Bull U. 8. Geol. Survey, No. 56, p. 50, pl. vii, figs. 2-5. 1899. decsiercedin virginianum Kn.: Nineteenth Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. Survey, Pt. II, p. 516, pl. lii, figs. 7-10. As stated above, this species was described from what was thought at the time to be Potomac strata, but which later investigation has shown to be undoubted Triassic. It was also detected in the Richmond ‘Basin, as mentioned in my report on that material. Its presence is now demonstrated in the Triassic area of North Carolina. ' On comparing the drawings here given with the original figures, it will be seen that the agreement is very close indeed. The medul- lary rays have about the same number of cells and the same charac- ters. The pits on the radial walls of the wood cells are identical. When the pits are in a single row they are less evidently hexagonal, but when in two rows they are distinctly so. I therefore do not hesi- tate to refer the specimen to this species. Locality.—Lockville, North Carolina; collected by I. C. Russell, July 25, 1885. THE EMMONS COLLECTION. On the evening of March 28, 1894, at the close of a meeting of the Geological Society of Washington, before which I had read a paper on Warp.] THE EMMONS COLLECTION. 275 The Potomac Formation, Dr. T. Nelson Dale, of Williams College, Wil- liamstown, Massachusetts, approached me and asked if I was also inter- ested in the flora of the Trias. When I informed him that I had been studying it for the last five years and had prepared an extended paper on it which I hoped sometime to publish, he volunteered the startling information that all of Dr. Ebenezer Emmons’s types from the North Carolina coal fields were deposited at Williams College and were under his charge. As it had been so frequently and confidently stated that these types were lost or destroyed during the war, this piece of news came as a revelation. Jasked him if it would be possible to obtain access to them in order to have them reexamined by Professor Fontaine and a final report published upon them, and he said that so far as his author- ity went he would be glad to cooperate in securing this result. He said he had compared a number of them with the published fig- ures and was certain that a portion at least of the type specimens were in the collection, and he presumed all. Indeed, he thought there was considerable material that had not been published. I immediately wrote to Professor Fontaine and asked him if he would like to undertake to overhaul the collection and prepare a report. His interest was of course great and he consented to do so. He corresponded directly with Dr. Dale, and after some delay the desired result was brought about. In a letter to Professor Fontaine, dated May 10, 1894, Dr. Dale says: Dear Sir: I have at last found time to look over Emmons’s fossil plants. The specimens from which the figures reproduced by you in your monograph on the Older Mesozoic were drawn are mostly here. I have identified the following: Your pl. 48, figs. 6 and 8 (the latter slightly damaged, the former, 2 specimens). Pl. 49, fig. 6. Pl. 51, fig 1 (marked Volizia acutifolia) and figs. 2, 3. Pl. 52, fig. 6. Pl. 58, figs. 4, 5 (of the latter a better specimen). Pl. 54, figs. 4, 7. There is one marked “impression of trunk of cycad’’ somewhat like your pl. 52, fig. 5. Also the following: Cycadites longifolius, Calamites, Lepacyclotes with Walchia diffusus, Walchia variabilis. A Sphenopteris egyptiaca better than pl. 48, fig. 8. Besides these there is a drawer 30 by 16 by 23 inches, full of smaller apociiens. many of them with his labels still attached. Should you chance to be in New England sometime I would ‘be pleased to give you every facility for studying the specimens, but I ought to be advised. beforehand lest I should chance to be out of town. , Yours, respectfully, T. NELson Date. The pressure of other work, however, delayed attention to this impor- tant matter for a period of over three years. I had become specially interested in the. subject of cycads, and as several supposed cycads had been reported from the North Carolina coal fields by Dr. Emmons, I \ 276 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES.. decided to visit Williams College and endeavor to find the types of his figures of these. I accordingly arranged with Dr. Dale to meet him there on July 17, 1897, and look at the collection and try to hunt up certain specimens.. Every facility for this was placed at my disposal. I found two of the supposed cycadean trunks and took detailed notes upon them. One of those figured could not be found. Another proved to be merely an impression, but evidently that ofa cycadean trunk. It is tolerably clear and is described and figured below with the specific name given to it by Professor Fontaine. Dr. Emmons practically recognized it as a Cycadeoidea (see infra, p. 302, Pl. XLIII, Fig. 3). Another specimen was found which was never figured. It is a disk of a small trunk, faintly showing scars around the edge. As Professor Fontaine has not in the report to follow dealt with this specimen, the following note written with the specimen before me may as well be recorded: This is a thin segment of a small trunk. It consists of a gray coarse sandstone and is mainly a mere cast, but around the edge is a thin layer of a finer material on which there are faint indications of scars. The cross section is elliptical, 9 by 11 cm. The thickness - (length of the trunk) is from 2 to 3cm. On one side is a label with the words ‘‘Zamites, Stem of Cycad,” probably in Dr. Emmons’s handwriting. . : Some time afterwards, at my request, Dr. Dale brought this speci- men to Washington, and, through the kindness of Professor Diller, the most promising portions were ground slightly in the hope that something of the internal structure might be revealed, but it proved to be only a-sandstone cast, all within being wholly structureless. Professor Fontaine, while engawad in working up this collection, as presently to be mentioned, examined this specimen, andin a letter to me dated August 5, 1898, he says: The disk of sandstone which you examined to see if it might be a cycad trunk, seems to be a cross section of a cylindrical cast of an Equisetum. I am quite prepared to accept this conclusion. A year later arrangements were made for working up the collection, and on August 3, 1898, Professor Fontaine went to Williams College and made an exhaustive study of the material, occupying over two weeks. He described all the species, but did not then figure them, making an arrangement with Dr. Dale to have the types that he selected to be figured sent to the University of Virginia and to the ‘United States Geological Survey, Division of Illustrations, where the. drawings could be made with all necessary care. Professor Fontaine elaborated his notes and completed his report in January, 1899, and the types not figured by him were drawn in the Division of Illustrations during the winter and spring. They were returned-to Williams Col- lege in June. This careful recension by Professor Fontaine of the classic collection FONTAINE. ] THE EMMONS COLLECTION. 277 of Dr. Emmons, so happily preserved to science, proves to be of course a most important consummation and sheds a flood of new light on the whole subject of the Older Mesozoic flora of America. Among other results, it has the effect of rescuing from an oblivious synonymy and uncertainty a number of Dr. Emmons’s names, some of them dating back to his North Carolina report of 1856. In the synonymy of the species in Professor Fontaine’s descriptive paper that follows, and:for which I am alone responsible, I have endeavored to do full justice to Dr. Emmons’s names by preserving them as having priority over all others. In a few cases these old species of Dr. Emmons also occur in the York deposits as made known by Mr. Wanner and embodied in an earlier part of this paper. In such cases, to avoid unnecessary repetition, the synonymy is given there and only a reference to it made here. Prof. J. A. Holmes, State geologist of North Carolina, has recently found a few more of Dr. Emmons’s Triassic plants, which he sent to Professor Fontaine. The latter informs me that there is nothing new among them, and has offered to send them to Washington. The following is Professor Fontaine’s report on the Emmons collection: NOTES ON FOSSIL PLANTS COLLECTED BY DR. EBENEZER EMMONS FROM THE OLDER MESOZOIC ROCKS OF NORTH CAROLINA. By Wm. M. FontrAINE. Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, when State geologist of North Carolina, collected a number of fossil plants in the Older Mesozoic beds of that State. In Pt. VI of his American Geology, published in 1857, he gave descriptions and figures of them. At a subsequent time the writer made collections of fossil plants from beds of apparently the same age in Virginia. Descriptions and figures of these were pub- lished as a Monograph of the United States Geological Survey, Vol. VI. As it was apparent from a comparison of the Virginia fossils with the figures and descriptions given by Emmons of his plants that there was much resemblance in a number of cases, it was necessary for a satisfactory determination to examine Emmons’s specimens. Emmons identified some of his forms with Virginia plants. It was quite pos- sible that the number of plants known to him from the Virginia beds was much smaller than that collected by the writer. Had he been able to compare this larger collection with his own he would possibly have made additional identifications. Besides, the more complete series of specimens collected from the Virginia beds might throw light on plants that he, from more imperfect specimens, had erroneously determined. A careful inspection of his material would be required to settle these points. Accordingly efforts were made to locate the type specimens 278 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. of the forms described in Pt. VI of the American Geology,: but with- out success. Neither the types nor any of the fossil-plant material collected by Emmons could be found. That being the case, the figures given by Emmons were the sole dependence for comparison, and under the circumstances, they could not be very satisfactory. . It-was thought best, then, to reproduce these. figures in Monograph, United States Geological Survey, Vol. VI, giving Emmons’s descriptions, and to accompany them with such criticisms as would be suggested by the Virginia specimens. Even from the figuresit could be seen that there was a larger number of plants common to the two States than Emmons had noticed. This review was embodied in the Monograph. Recently, Prof. T. Nelson Dale, in examining the unsorted and un- classified fossils.in the collections of Williams College, Massachusetts, found fossil plants which he recognized as having been collected by Emmons. This led him to think that probably the long-lost collection might be found to have been placed in Williams College, and he so stated to Professor Ward. Professor Ward, knowing its importance, visited Williams College, and after an examination of the specimens was convinced that they formed all that remained of Emmons’s collection. Dr. Dale only recently took charge of the collections of fossils’ in Williams College. He found a large mass of heterogeneous and unsorted material, and going over this for the purpose of labeling the specimens and placing them in cases for preservation, he found the fossils above alluded to. They were scattered among animal fossils and other specimens. Noattempt had been made to keep them together and credit them to Dr. Emmons. A considerable number of the speci- mens were evidently as Emmons had packed them in collecting, and they were accompanied by his field labels, bearing the names of the plants and the localities yielding them. There is no record as to how these fossils came into the possession of Williams College, and no one prior to Dr. Dale’s discovery knew of their existence. It is probable that they were presented to the college by Dr. Emmons after the pub- lication of the descriptions, or by Mrs. Emmons after his death. The collection made by Dr. Emmons will in all probability stand as the most complete one of the plant fossils of the Older Mesozoic of North Carolina. He made it under exceptionally favorable circum- stances, which will most probably never be met with again. The rocks closely associated with the coal of North Carolina are the only ones that in future will probably be opened up and afford opportunity for the collection of plant fossils. If we may judge from Emmons’s experience, they, unlike those similarly placed in Virginia, are very poor in plant fossils. Emmons found nearly all his specimens, and all his best-preserved and most interesting plants, in measures that have been proved to be without workable coal, and which occur, according to him, many hundred feet above the wor kable coal. It is not probable FONTAINE] THE EMMONS COLLECTION. 279 that in future these strata will be extensively explored. The case, however, was quite different when Emmons was State geologist. There was at one time great activity in the search for coal. The upper portion of the Older Mesozoic had not then been shown to be without workable coal. Ina number of places these beds contain thin seams of coal, enough to have caused trial pits to be sunk. A great many of these pits were opened, and in a number of cases they afforded well- preserved plants. Emmons’s position as State geologist gave him unusual opportunities both for hearing of the plants and for collecting them. Fortunately he appreciated the importance of taking advan- tage of them. With the passing away of the inducement to search for coal in the upper measures all opportunity for collecting in them ceased. The shallow pits soon filled up and all trace of them disappeared, so that in time no one even remembered them. I had occasion to note these pits. When it proved impossible to find in North Carolina any trace of Emmons’s collection it was thought advisable to visit the localities mentioned by him as giving him his most abundant and. best fossils. This was done, and the outcome was complete failure to find Emmons’s localities or any others. No one remembered them. The exposures of rocks are few and poor and showed no recognizable plants. It was evident that Emmons owed his success in collecting plants to the exceptional conditions mentioned above, under which he operated. The Emmons plants found in the Williams College collections being the best representatives of the Older Mesozoic flora of North Caro- lina, Professor Ward requested me to study them. I visited Williams College in the summer of 1898 and made a careful examination of the North. Carolina material. It is the object of this paper to give the results obtained. In this material most of the plants figured and described by Dr. Emmons were found. There are, besides the type specimens, many duplicates of some of the forms. and some that were not given in the published figures and descriptions. 280 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES. Subkingdom PTERIDOPHYTA (Ferns and Fern Allies). ‘Class FILICALES. Family FILICES (Ferns). Genus SPHENOPTERIS Brongniart. SPHENOPTERIS EGYPTIACA Emmons. Pl. XXXVIUII, Fig. 1. 1857. Sphenopteris egyptiaca Emm.: American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 36, figs. 8 and 9 on p. 37. 1885.