DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES— EBEN ACE ;E. 231 



United Stales Geological Survey of the Territories. The Cretaceous of Eu- 

 rope has none as yet, but there numerous species have been found in the 

 Eocene, with leaves and fruits, especially described by Saporta from the 

 Gypses of Aix; and, as we find the genus represented also in the North 

 American Eocene, even in its lowest strata of Point of Rocks, its origin 

 may be undoubtedly ascribed to the Cretaceous. The type is preserved by 

 a still larger number of species in the Miocene of Europe, where it even 

 passes to the Pliocene; for Saporta and Marion, in the Flora of Maximieux, 

 describe a D. protolotus, which is closely allied to the living D. lotus, and 

 D. Virginiana, Linn. Its presence in the Tertiary of Greenland is marked 

 by two species; and on this continent it is recognized in the Miocene of 

 Bellingham Bay and Barrard Island by one species, also seen at Evanston 

 and in Alaska; and by those which are described here, one of which is from 

 the Upper Miocene of the Parks of Colorado. None, however, has been 

 observed until now in the Pliocene of California. 



Diospyros! ficoidea, Lesqz. 

 Plate XL, Figs. 5, 6. 

 Diospyrosf Jicoidea, Lesqs., Aunual Report, 1874, p. 314. 



Leaves of a thick substance, ovate, lanceolate, or acuminate (point broken), rounded in narrow- 

 ing to the base, deeply, coarsely nerved, camptodrome. 



The two fragments figured here have the nervation deeper and thicker 

 than in most of the fossil species referred to this genus. The numerous 

 parallel and equidistant lateral nerves, at an angle of divergence of 30°, are 

 nearly straight from the base to near the borders, where they curve in a series 

 of bows, either simple, more rarely double, joined by strong distinct nervilles, 

 nearly in right angle. The nervilles divide also mostly in right angle, by 

 veinlets of the second order, forming, by branchlets in the same direction, 

 irregularly quadrate or polygonal meshes (fig. 5 a). The coarseness of the 

 nervation and the rough surface give to the leaves the appearance of those 

 of some species of Ficus. The same is, however, remarked upon the leaves 

 of D. MKeps, Heer, Fl. Tert. Helv., as represented in pi. cii, fig. 16, to which 

 this species seems closely related. 



HABirAT.— Black Buttes, Wyoming {Prof. F. B. Meek). I found the 

 fragment of fig, 6 at the same locality with a smaller more indistinct one, the 

 base of a leaf with a short petiole. As seen in the figure, the nerves are 

 broader than in the leaf of fig. 5. 



