20 FOSSIL FLORA OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



The var. palustris, Chap., has leaves still more obtusely pointed than that 

 of Fig. 1, the only one preserved nearly in its integrity. If not identical 

 with the living species, the fossil one may be considered as its ancestor. 

 Its analogy to fossil species is marked with P. Braunii, Heer, Fl. Tert. 

 Helv., p. 80, PL LXXXIX. Figs. 9, 10, of the Miocene of (Eningen. 

 Habitat. — Table Mountain, California. Voy's Collection. 



DISCANTHE^. 



ARALIA, L. 



Aralia Whitneyi, sp. nov. 



PL V. Fig. 1. 



Leaves of very large size, subcoriaceous, surface polished, fan-likt in outline, broadly 

 cum ate or subtruncate to a thick, apparently short petiole ; thret palmately nerved, 

 and seven-lobed by subdivision of tin: lateral nerves : lobes entire, cut down to about 

 one third of the lamina, broadly lanceolate-acuminate; secondary nervation camp- 



todrome. 



The figure represents one of the smallest and better preserved leaves of 

 this species, from its numerous specimens in the collection. It is twenty 

 centimeters broad, and eighteen long from the top of the petiole. Another 

 of these leaves, well preserved also, is twenty-seven centimeters long, 

 and fragments less complete indicate a size of thirty-six centimeters wide, 

 and thirty centimeters broad for the leaves which the}' represent. The 

 shape or general outline of the leaves is very graceful. They are like 

 large open fans cut around in seven nearly equal lobes, all joined by ob- 

 tuse sinuses, and separating in the same degree, according to the angle 

 of divergence of 20° to 25° of the primary nerves, which run straight to 

 the point of the lobes. The primary nerves are properly in three ; but 

 the lateral ones fork twice at a short distance from the base, and thus 

 compose the seven-lobed divisions of the leaves. These primary veins 

 and their branches are thick ; the secondary ones, on the contrary, origi- 

 nating a little lower than the base of the lobes, are thin, but distinct, 

 close, parallel, curving in passing up to the borders, camptodrome ; the 

 nervilles are distinct, and in right angle to the nerves, those of the lower 

 part turned up from the primary nerves, and arched in the middle. The 

 areolation is obsolete. 



