Castaneopsis. AMEXTACE^E. Q 



a remarkably distinct likeness. Indeed, the}' are so similar to those of 

 Querent lyrata, Valt., a common species of the flora of the Southern States, 

 that it is scarcely possible to doubt their identity. The fossil leaves are 

 merely slightly smaller, their lobes less inclined backwards, and the ter- 

 tiary veins less deeply marked. As the leaves of Oaks are so variable 

 that the identification of species is rarely ascertainable from their char- 

 acters only, I did not think advisable to apply to the fossil ones the name 

 of the living species, notwithstanding the impossibility of remarking any 

 difference between them. 



Habitat? — The locality is unknown, or at least not marked in the cata- 

 logue of the labels. The matrix of the specimens is a white soft clay, 

 like that of the Chalk Bluffs of Nevada County, California, and no other 

 species is preserved upon them, except a fragment of a leaf apparently 

 referable to Castanea intermedia, Lesqx. These specimens are evidently 

 from the same formation and age as those of the Chalk Bluffs. 



CASTANEOPSIS, Spach. 



Castaneopsis chrysophylloides, sp. now 



PL II Fig. 10. 



Leaves coriaceous, entire, with undulate apparently recurved borders, oblong-lanceolate, 

 narrowed upwards to a slightly obtuse acumen, and mon gradually from the middle 

 downward to a short petiole ; nervation camptodrome. 



By the form of the leaf, narrowed into a short acumen, by their size, 

 by the glabrous surface, and by the characters of nervation as far as they 

 can be recognized, this leaf lias a remarkable likeness to those of C. chri/so- 

 phylla, Hook., of the present flora of California. The lateral veins are 

 slightly more curved, and also in a somewhat more acute angle of diver- 

 gence from the midrib, at least in a general point of comparison. Many 

 leaves, however, of the living species, of which I have numerous finely 

 preserved specimens, do not show any difference whatever, either in the 

 directions or in the curve of the secondary veins. So great is the affinity 

 that if a fruit like that of the chestnut had been found in connection with 

 this leaf, I should have admitted it as positively identified to C. chrysophyUn. 

 Its type is also that of some species of Oaks, either fossil, like Quercm LyeM, 

 Heer., Q. elcena, Ung., or living, like Q. vvrens, var. mariiima, all species from 



