BOTANICAL CHARACTER. 37 



The sub-family Taxodieae is represented by 3 or 3 species 

 of Sequoia and i of Genitcia, all forms with a considerable 

 geographical range. The sub-family Supresseae makes the 

 greatest display in species during Raritan time, with no less 

 than 8 recorded forms. These include a species of Thuja, 

 another of Thuyifcs, a wide-ranging Junipcrus, Moriconia, and 

 2 species each in Widdringtonites and Frenclopsis. Modern 

 botanists include both of the latter genera as synonyms of the 

 genus CalUtris, but there is considerable advantage and good 

 arguments for maintaining their distinctness, Widdringtonites 

 Reichii (Ett.) Heer is abundant throughout the Raritan and 

 Magothy formations and is undoubtedly descended from the 

 closely allied form of the older Potomac. Widdringtonites sub- 

 tilis Heer, although present in the lower Raritan at Wood- 

 bridge, is more characteristic of the somewhat later Upper 

 Cretaceous deposits of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. One species 

 of Frenelopsis is a survivor from the Lower Cretaceous, and the 

 other is a characteristic form in the overlying Magothy formation 

 in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. In some respects the 

 most interesting member of the sub-family is Moriconia cyclo- 

 toxon Deb. & Ett. described originally from the European 

 Senonian of Aachen and thought to be a fern. Afterward dis- 

 covered by Heer in both the Cenomanian and Senonian beds of 

 Greenland, it appears in the upper Raritan at South Amboy. 

 • The Angiospermae, or plants with closed ovaries, usually des- 

 ignated as "flowering plants," malce up the balance of the flora. 

 These are nearly all dicotyledons. Monocotyledons are usually 

 less fully represented in fossil floras than are the dicotyledons, 

 which not only have leaves dift'erentiated into blade and leaf 

 stalk, but have these parts more resistant to maceration, so that 

 the absence of monocotyledons may simply mean that none w^ere 

 preserved, although there are very plausible theoretical reasons 

 for regarding the monocotys as a comparatively modern offshoot 

 from the older dicotys. The monocotyledon known from the 

 Raritan formation is the single species of Sniilax to wdiich genus 

 the writer has transferred Prof. Newberry's species of Paliurus, 

 and as this is a rare and not especially significant element in the 

 flora, it may be passed without further consideration. 



