THE CRETACEOUS FLORA. 211 



FI.OItA OF THE ISIIASTA KOUMATIOX. 



Fossil plants liave l)OCii found in tlu> Shasta bods in both California 

 and Oregon. I'ntil refontly there was ijreat confusion in the plant- 

 bearing beds of Oregon, as it was not supposed that the Jurassic was 

 found there. As shown in this paper, however, all the specimens fi'oni 

 the Buck Mountain region, as well as those from the Cow Creek Valley, 

 ncai- Nichols station, came from the Jurassic. Those, howevei-, from 

 localities farther east, especially from neai' the town of Pviddles, ai-e of 

 Shasta age and will be treated mider this head. 



During the progress of the topographic survey of the Red Bluff 

 (juadrangle, in Shasta and Tehama counties, Cal., in charge of Mr. Gilbert 

 Thompson, which was made in the years 1882-1884, Mr. Thompson found 

 a plant-ljearing bed near Pettyjohn's ranch, on the Cold P'ork of Cotton- 

 wood ('reek, Tehama Coimty, and collected and sent in a numl)er of 

 specimens. Only one of these, however, seems to have been saved, and 

 this was sent to Prof. Leo Lesquereux, who determined it as a Pecopteris, 

 without assigning to it a specific name. As such it was duly recorded 

 in the catalogue of the National Museum as No. 2193. It was in two 

 parts, completing each other, and these have been glued together. These 

 parts beai' Professor Lesquereux's numbers 254 and 255. Owing to the 

 obscure chirography of the label, the name of the locality was misspelled 

 in the Catalogue and the attention of the geologists who subsequently 

 studied the beds of t his region was not. called to it. As soon as the correct 

 name, Pettyjohn's ranch, was known, the specimen, which had long lain 

 in a drawer waiting for data to fix its position in the collections, assumed 

 a special interest and steps were taken to learn more of its historw It 

 was shown to Mr. Gilbert Thompson, who recognized it at once and 

 distinctly remembered collecting it. He indicated the epcact locality- on 

 the map, which would certainly place it in the Shasta formation and well 

 up in the Horse town beds near the base of the Chico. The character of 

 the rock agrees well with this and there is nothing remarkable except 

 the fact that the plant seems to represent the chiefly Paleozoic genus 

 Pecopteris. It is a large, distinct fern, wholly unlike any of the others 

 that were collected in that region. It may well have been a tree fern. 

 As Professor Fontaine says, the finer nervation is not shown, and it is 

 still possible that it may belong to some of the Mesozoic genera to whicli 



