47 



our figure and description is made is much like that figured by Saporta. There 

 is, however, some difference in the more deeply disconnected lobes ; in the 

 slightly crenulate borders, a character which may be caused by the wrinkled 

 surface of the leaflets; especially in the disposition of the tertiary vinelets 

 more evidently alternate, and of the secondary ones more decurrcnt than 

 marked by the enlarged figure of the author. Our fragment has also as 

 evident a degree of likeness by the form of the leaflet to Raphaelia neurop- 

 teroides, Deb. et Ett,, as figured in the Acrobyren of the Cretaceous of Belgium, 

 PI. v, Fig. 20, and by its nervation to the same species as figured enlarged, 

 PI. iv, Fig. 25. Indeed, it seems that the American form is not specifically 

 distinct from the Belgian one, which by its different fragments indicates a 

 fern with a polypinnatc frond and variable divisions. 

 Habitat. — Kansas, Prof. B. F. Mudge. 



3. Gleichenia kurriana, Heer, PI. i, Figs. 5, 5 b , 5 C . 



Frond pinuately divided ; pinnre long, linear, pinnately equally lobed ; lobes nearly at right angles 

 to the racnis, separated to near the base ; medial nerve thick, pinuately branching ; veins forking at tho 

 middle. 



Gleichenia kurriana, Heer, Flora v. Moletin, p. 6, PL ii, Figs. 1-4. — G. kur- 

 riana(1), Lesqx., Hayden's Report, 1872, p. 421. 



Though the branch of fern described here much resembles the species 

 described by Heer, by the form of its pinnules disjoined to below the middle 

 by a narrow obtuse sinus, identity of both these forms is, however, doubtful. 

 The difference in the characters is more marked between the Ameiican 

 specimen and those of Moletin, than with a small fragment of a pinna pub- 

 lished also by Heer from the Cretaceous formations of Quedlinburg, and 

 which the author refers with doubt to the same species : Quedl. Flora, p. 5, 

 PI. 1, Fig. 3-4. The specimens from Moletin, however, are fructified while 

 these last are sterile, and this may account for the difference of the facies. 

 From the Moletin specimens the American form essentially differs by pro- 

 portionally shorter, broader, more obtuse pinnules, more open too, or nearly 

 at a right angle to the rachis, and from both the European specimens, by the 

 forked secondary veins, which are marked simple in the descriptions and fig- 

 ures of the author. By this character our American species or variety would 

 be more closely related to Didymososorus comptoniifolius, Deb. et Etting., a spe- 

 cies from the Cretaceous of Aix-la-Chapelle, which, with a somewhat like 

 form of pinnules, has its veins also forked. The facies of this last fossil fern 



