Aralia, DISCAXTHK.K. 21 



This species seems to have been extensively distributed in this flora, 

 for it is represented by numerous specimens from divers localities, pre- 

 senting always, as far as that may be recognized by the fragments, the 

 same characters and the same large size of leaves. The genus Aralia has 

 its origin in the Cretaceous ; numerous species of Aralia and Araliopsis 

 have been described from the Dakota group, one of which, A. Towneri, 

 has, like this, entire lobes, and a nervation of the same character. The 

 relation of our species, however, is more definite with A. affinis and its 

 closely allied congener A. notala, of the Eocene, which is locally as widely 

 distributed as that of the Chalk Bluffs, for in some localities specimens 

 of this species only have been found in abundance. 



The same type is represented in the European Miocene by Aralia [Pla- 

 tanui) Hercules, Ung. Chlor. Prot., p. 138, PI. XLVI., and at the present 

 time by some species of the section of the Oreopanax, especially by the 

 beautiful Aralia papirifera of China and Japan, whose leaves are of the 

 same form, and generally still larger than those of the fossil species. 



Habitat. — Chalk Bluffs, Nevada County, California. Voy's Collection. 

 Represented also by more than one half of the specimens of the collection 

 of Professor J. D. Whitney. 



Aralia Zaddachi? Heer. 



PI. V. Fir/.s. 2, 3. 



Leaves comparatively small, subcoriaceous, five-lobed, rounded to and cordate at the base, 

 distantly obtusely dentatt secondary nerves at an acute angle of divergence. 



The consistence of these leaves is somewhat thick ; the primary tri- 

 palmate nervation, from the base of the petiole, gives a fivedobed divis- 

 ion of the lamina by the forking of the lateral primary nerves in branches 

 of equal thickness. Contrary to what is remarked in the former species, 

 the middle nerve is thicker than the lateral ones. The lower secondary 

 veins, at an acute angle of divergence, either follow the borders and 

 curve along them when they are entire, or enter the obtuse, distant 

 teeth, distinct from near the cordate base of the leaves in Fig. 2. The 

 upper secondary nerves are somewhat more open and more curved in 

 passing to the borders. The lobes which reach to the middle of the 

 lamina are oblong, slightly enlarged in the middle, lanceolate-acuminate, 

 and distantly dentate below the point which is apparently entire, as seen 



