57 



Liquidambar integrifolium, Lesqx., American Journal of Science and Arts, 



loc. cit., p. 93 ; Hayden's Kept., 1872, p. 442. 



The first description was made from a single leaf. Since then I have 

 found a number of specimens of the same kind, all representing leaves of a 

 smaller size. They vary from 10 to 16 centimeters broad, from the points of the 

 lowest lobes, from 8 to 15 centimeters long, without the petiole. The lobes, 

 cut to nearly the middle of the leaves, are equally diverging, the lowest hori- 

 zontally or at right angle to the middle nerve, and the intermediate at about 

 the same angle between the lowest and the middle lobe. The lobes are per- 

 fectly entire, slightly enlarged in the middle, and ovate-lanceolate, obtusely 

 pointed, or, in the smaller leaves, oblong-obtuse. The palmately divided 

 primary thick nerves are united a little above the basilar border of the leaves, 

 either all at the same point, or the lateral ones parting from the middle nerve 

 a little above its base, and, as seen in Plate iii, Fig. 2, the lowest are branch- 

 ing too at a distance from the base of the lateral nerve. The characters of 

 the areolation and the divisions of the veins are the same as in our present 

 Liquidambar styracijluum, L., and but for its entire borders and the somewhat 

 broader and shorter divisions of the fossil leaves, those of PI. ii, at least, would 

 be referred as identical to our present species. Even the petiole, at the point 

 of union with the leaves, appear bordered like the living species by a folia- 

 ceous appendage, PI. ii, Fig. 1 . The two small leaves, however, represented 

 in PI. xxiv and xxix, seem by their smooth surface and round obtuse point 

 referable to a variety of this species or related to a different type, that of the 

 Acerinece{%) Of the four species of Liquidambar known in our present flora all 

 have the divisions of their leaves serrate ; of the fossil species, one, Liquidambar 

 goepperti, Wat., PI. foss. du bass, de Paris, (p. 166, tab. xlvii, Fig. 4,) has the 

 borders entire, but the leaf merely trilobate ; a second, L. ScarabcUianum, 

 Massal., Flor. foss. Senegal, (p. 239, PL xv, xvi, Figs. 7, 11 ; PL xx, Fig. 1, 

 and PL xxxviii, Fig. 7,) has leaves with acute lobes and sinuses, without an- 

 alogy with the forms of ours. A. third species, Platanus sirii, Ung., Flora 

 v. Sotzka, (p. 36, PL xxxvi, Fig. 1,) is more closely related to the Cretaceous 

 leaves by its general form, but is more deeply lobed, its lobes proportionately 

 narrower. It is, however, of the same type, and, considering its generic 

 affinity, the author is uncertain if the leaf should be referred to Liquidambar 

 or to Acer: It is also related to L. gracile of the second Tertiary group. 

 In this leaf the secondary nervation is apparently totally obsolete. In 

 8 L 



