DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES— MAGNOLIACE^. 247 



and those of the species of Biliii. Their reference to the New Holland 

 genus Callicotna is, however, a question that I am unable to consider. The 

 leaflets vary in length from four to tive centimeters, with a slender petiole six 

 millimeters long, and a width of five millimeters. The areolation is marked 

 in fig. 4o enlarged. 



Habitat. — Middle Park, Colorado {Dr. F. V. Hayden). Florissant, near 

 South Park, Colorado {Prof. E. D. Coi^e?). The first specimen was procured 

 by Prof. Allen, from Elko Station, Nevada. These leaves are, with those of 

 Planera longifolia, the more numerous representatives of the upper Green 

 River group. 



POLYCARPICJ]. . 

 MAGNOLIACE^. 



MAGNOLIA, Linn. 



This beautiful name is appropriately given to one of the finest orders 

 of the dicotyledonous plants of our globe. The MagnoUtB are mostly large 

 trees, some of the species in their full development attaining a height of 

 more than eighty feet. Around Drummond Lake, in the Dismal Swamp of 

 Virginia, one may see Magnolia trees bearing immense crowns of green 

 foliage and white blossoms, on branches widely spreading around from the 

 top of smooth, cylindrical trunks, which seem like enormous columns sup- 

 porting the roof of a temple. The atmosphere, for miles around, is per- 

 fumed by the fragrance of their flowers. Indeed, the Magnolia., and its 

 relative, the Tulip tree, are wonders of American nature quite as worthy 

 admiration as the great Niagara or the mammoth trees of California. They 

 rival in size the Oak and the Plane, and no other trees have leaves as finely 

 shaped, or flowers like these. 



The genus Magnolia is at our time North American only. Looking to its 

 history, we find it already in numerous species in the geological floras of Europe 

 and of this continent. It has two species, with very large leaves, in the Creta- 

 ceous Flora of Moletin, by Heer. From the same formation of the Dakota 

 group, three have been described, two of which have been seen also in the 

 Cretaceous of Greenland. In Europe, it reappears in the Eocene of Suzanne 

 in one s[5ecies; in the different strata of the Miocene in nine; and in North 

 America, it is recognized in the Eocene of the Mississippi by five species, some 

 of them seen also in the Lower Lignitic of the Rocky Mountains and described 



