444 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEmi. 



comparison for considering the marchof the vegetation during the Mio- 

 cene period from the jjolar circle to the middle of the North American 

 continent, or from the thirty-fifth or fortieth to the eightieth degree of 

 latitude. The remarkable affinity of the Miocene types, in their distri- 

 bution from Spitzbergen and Greenland to the middle of Europe, had 

 already been manifested by the celebrated works of Heer. But the 

 Alaska flora has for this continent the great advantage of exposing, in 

 the Miocene period, the i)redominance of vegetable types which have 

 continued to our time and are still present in the vegetation of this con- 

 tinent. 



To what was known until now of the Alaska flora a valuable addition 

 has been procured by the collections made for the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution by Dr. W. H. Dall, of the Coast Survey. A large number of 

 finely preserved specimens of fossil plants were procured from Alaska 

 and its vicinity — Coal Harbor, Uuga Island, Shumagins (south side of 

 Aliaska); Chugachik Bay, Cook's Inlet; and Chignik Bay, Aliaska 

 Peninsula. In this valuable collection, which was intrusted to me for 

 examination, I have found a number of species, already described by 

 Heer, from Alaska, a few others described already from the Miocene of 

 Greenland or of Europe, but not yet known from Alaska, and some 

 new species. These last are described below with the enumeration of 

 those described already, but not yet known in the flora of Alaska. 



DESCRIPTION AND ENUMERATION OF SPECIES. 

 CEYPTOGAME.E. 



Equisetace^. 



JEquisetum glohulosum, sp. nov. 



Ehizoma slender, thinly lineate, flexuous or rigid, distantly articulate, 

 bearing simple oi)posite globular tubercles, more or less wrinkled by 

 compression. 



The branches from 1 to 6"'"' in diameter, irregularly striate, straight, or 

 flexuous, distantly articulate, bear at the articulations, simple opposite, 

 globular appendages somewhat like those of Pliysagenia Parlatorii 

 Heer (Fl. tert. Helv. 1, p. 109, pi. XLII, figs. 2-17), but globular and gen- 

 erally" simple, very rarely appendiculate in two. These remains are 

 much decomposed by nmceration, and fragmentary, none of them con- 

 tinuous, and all without trace of sheath. 



FiLICES. 



Osmunda Torelli Heer, Mioc. El. of Sakhalin, p. 19, pi. 1, f. 4, 4b. 



Fecopteris Torelli Heer, Fl. Arct., 1, p. 88, pi. 1, f. 15. 



HemUeUtes Torelli Heer, ibid., II, p. 4G2, pi. xl, figs. 1-5 a; Iv. f. 2. 



This species is represented by a very large number of specimens, 

 mostly separate leaflets embedded in bowlders of carbonate of iron. 



