12 THE RARITAN FLORA. 



r Lignite. 

 Plastic Clay < Potters' Clay. 

 [ Lignite. 

 The first fossil plant from the Raritan to receive scientific de 

 scription was the Podozamites, described by Conrad from the 

 banks of South River, in 1869. Fossil plants had been described 

 and figured from Marthas Vineyard by Hitchcock as long ago 

 as 1841 (Final Rept. Geol. of Mass., Vol. 2, 1841), and various 

 authors had mentioned vegetable remains in Maryland and Vir- 

 ginia and other southern states. 



These leaf impressions in the Raritan Clays early attracted 

 the attention of Professor Cook, and large collections were made. 

 Unfortunately, like the leaves in so many of the unlithified plant 

 beds of the Coastal Plain, those of the Raritan are usually repre- 

 sented by a .more or less thick sheet of carbonaceous matter, 

 which, when dry, soon shrinks, cracking and weathering away 

 and leaving faint and almost worthless impressions behnid. This 

 has always been an obstacle to their proper study, as it was in the 

 study of Professor Cook's collections which were submitted to 

 Lesquereux. Professor Lesquereux prepared a list of species, 

 which was published in the Clay Report of 1878, but because of 

 this poorness of preservation, little reliance can be placed upon 

 his determinations. Several of these species have never since 

 been observed, and they are ignored altogether in the systematic 

 part of the present report. 



The following is a list of Lesquereux's determinations : 



Andromeda. 



Araliopsis. 



Cinnamomurii Hcerii Lx. 



Daphnophyllum? 



(Dryophylliun.) 



Glyptostrohus gracillimiis Lx.^=Widdringtonites 

 Reichii of this report. 



Laurus sp. 



Leaves of a peculiar new kind of fern. 



Magnolia altcniata Heer.^ 



Magnolia Capellmii Heer. 



Myrica, or Lomatia. 



