115 



affinity. I was at first disposed to regard it as a mere sandstone concretion, 

 and, therefore, as inorganic; but I found at the same locality, Blackbird Hills, 

 two other specimens, which, though somewhat different in form and size 

 seem to indicate their origin as vegetable. The one figured (PI. xxvii) is 

 oval, pointed at both ends, costate, apparently marked at the lower end by a 

 small hollow, surrounded by round small bolsters, as seen at the end of the 

 costre. The second is oblong-oval, smooth or without ribs, more abruptly 

 rounded at one end, and truncate at the other, with a distinct round excava- 

 tion in the middle, like the scar of a detached pedicel. The third is smaller, 

 but about of the same form as the first, and costate. These fruits (!) could 

 be compared to some nuts of palms, or to fruits related to the Nipadites of 

 Bowerbank, from the Eocene of England, but the analogy is questionable. 

 In some exposures of the sandstone of this formation, as, for example, near 

 Brooksville, Kansas, and between Tekamah and Decatur, there is an abun- 

 dance of round, smooth, perfectly regular concretions, generally called nuts by 

 the farmers, and considered as petrified walnuts or fruits of palm, &c. From 

 the examination of a large number of them, they are positively recognized as 

 mere ferruginous concretions. The so-called Carpolithes, described above, 

 may be of the same kind. An exactly round form and a same size for a num- 

 ber of specimens of concretions is, however, more easily explained than a kind 

 of relation by characters, which, like the hollow for a pedicel at one end, or 

 an equal disposition of ribs, &c, are not generally the result of mere inorganic 

 agglomerations. 



Caulinites spinosa, Lesqx., Hayden's Report, 1872, p. 422. 



Stem or branch cylindrical, \\ centimeters in diameter, with its surface 

 rough, marked by irregular, close dots or small cavities resembling the im- 

 pressions of scales. The stem apparently bears strong spines at a right angle; 

 their hollow, cylindrical scars are seen perforating the stone. These small 

 stems or branches resemble, by the rough surface, the fragments described 

 by Ettinghausen as Caulinites stigmarioides, (Flora v. Nieders., p. 14, PI. ii, 

 Fig. 1 ;) the dots, however, being closer in our stem, and about round, or not 

 so much transversely enlarged. The fragments, mostly imbedded and visi- 

 ble only at their ends, could not be figured. 



Habitat. — Near Fort Harker, Kansas. 



