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58 DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES. 



character of the Araliacece. This last character is still more marked in 

 the following species. 



This form is very rare. Except the specimens figured in the "Rep.," 

 I. c, I have not seen any identifiable with it, except a well-preserved leaf, 

 No. 148, counterpart 105, of the Museum Comp. Zool., Cambridge, which 

 in all its characters, especially by its peculiar nervation, represents in a 

 diminutive form fig. 3 of pi. x. The lateral nerves join the medial only a 

 little above the base of the leaf, and the lower pair of secondary nerves 

 follow upward along the borders and by an inward curve anastomose with 

 the outside curved end of the second pair above the middle of the leaf. 



Sassafras (Araliopsis) plataiioid.es, sp. nov. 

 Plate VII, Fig. 1. 



Leaves narrowly cuneate from the middle downward, palinately flve-lobate in the 

 upper enlarged part ; lobes short, the upper half-round or obtuse, apiculate, the lower 

 deltoid-acute; primary nerves tripartite from far above the base of the leaves; lateral 

 nerves branching in the middle, primary and secondary divisions passing out to the 

 points of the lobes. 



The leaf figured is 13 centimeters long from the point where it joins 

 the enlarged medial nerve in gradually decurring to it, and 11 centimeters 

 broad between the lower lateral lobes, which, though shorter than the 

 upper ones, are turned outside, while those above are directed upward; 

 the point of union of the veins is 2h centimeters above the base of the 

 leaf, the medial nerve underneath being 3 millimeters thick or three times 

 as broad as the medial nerve above the division. The lobes are of a 

 peculiar shape, the lower ones deltoid-acute, short, about 1 millimeter 

 long; the upper ones longer, rounded and narrowed to a blunt apex; the 

 terminal is of the same shape but still longer; all are joined in obtuse 

 sinuses. 



The close relation of this leaf to Platanus Heerii, "U. S. Geol. Rep.," 

 vi, pi. ix, figs. 1, 2, will be easily recognized; but still, the long narrowly 

 wedge-form base, the subdivision of the lateral primary nerves, are char- 

 acters represented in Araliopsis, especially in the preceding species, so that 

 it is extremely difficult to say with which of these generic divisions this 

 kind should be identified. 



Hub. — Near Clay Center, Kansas. H. C. Towner, from a figure com- 



