A fossil Petal and a fossil Fruit from the Cretaceous 

 (Dakota Group) of Kansas 



Bv Arthik Hollick 



Included in a collection of fossil plant remains from the Cre- 

 taceous (Dakota Group) of Kansas, recently obtained by the New 

 York Botanical Garden from Mr. Charles II. Sternberg, of Law- 

 rence, Kans., are two exceedingly interesting specimens — one rep- 

 resenting a large petal, the other a fleshy fruit. 



Petals, as fossils, are exceedingly rare, and I am not acquainted 

 with any published figure of anything of the kind which can com- 

 pare with ours, in regard to either size or satisfactory condition of 

 preservation. Unfortunately, a portion of the upper part, includ- 

 ing the apex, is gone, but it is sufficiently perfect to indicate what 

 was its original shape, and the principal characters of the nervation 

 are plainly discernible. 



Careful examination and comparison has shown that, in all 

 essentials, it agrees with the petals of some of our large-flowered 

 magnolias, such as M.foetida Sarg. and M. juacrophylla Michx., 

 and as some ten species of Magnolia, founded upon more or less 

 well-defined leaves, have been described from the Dakota group, I 

 have decided to refer it to that genus. 



The probabilities, of course, are that it belongs to a species to 

 which one of the fossil leaves belongs, but as it is impossible defi- 

 nitely to connect the petal with any one of these a distinctive 

 name is necessary, which should indicate that the fossil was a 

 petal and not a leaf. 



Magnolia palaeopetala sp. nov. 



Petal apparently ovate-spatulate in outline, about i 5 cm. long 

 by 10 cm. broad, convex, laterally constricted and incurved at the 

 base ; margin entire, wavy or flexuous ; nervation flabellate, dic- 

 tyodrome, simple and well defined below, forking and thinner 

 above, anastomosing, the areolae and reticulations becoming suc- 

 cessively smaller and the nervilles finer, towards the margin. 

 {Fig. A.) 



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