FLORA OF TIIK WOOPBIXE SAXH Al Ai; I 111 Its lil.lll-, TtX. 



155 



viillcv tliiii toward the soiitli or nro ropliiccd 

 by clillVront litholo<iic facics which hnvo ri'- 

 ceivod other nam«'s and whoso cquivah'nco 

 lias not hoon (h'tcrmincd. Xo roprosciitativo 

 of the Woodbine lias been refojriiized in contnil 

 Texas, where, according fo Stephenson," its 

 age e(|uivalent is absent or "lies in the rela- 

 tively thin sediments tliat compose the Biidn 

 limestone, a supposition which seems highly 

 im|)rt>bable and which has no basis of known 

 facts." A thin! alternative which I regard 

 as more probable than the two advanced by 

 Stephenson is that the leaf-bearing sands of 

 Red River which are referred to the lower 

 Woodbine are the lime equivalent of what is 

 called Eagle Ford in the Austin section. 

 Either Woodbine time is represented there 

 b}- the Buda limestone, which Stephenson 

 states is highly improbable, or it is repre- 

 sented bj- a break in sedimentation, which 

 seems to me equally improbable, or it is repre- 

 sented by the lower part of the Eagle Ford 

 of that section. 



FAUNA. 



The fauna of the Woodbine, which comes 

 from the upper part, or the Lcwisville marine 

 member, is not extensive, but certain species 

 are individually abundant at some localities. 

 It comprises an almost unicjuc assemblage of 

 shallow-water forms as identified by Cragin. 

 including the following: 



Area galliennei var. tramatensis Cragin. 

 Ostrea soleniscus Meek. 

 Modiola filLsoulpta Cragin. 

 Aguileria ciimminsi ^\Tiite. 

 Cythorca Icvorotti <'ragin. 

 Trisronarna siouxcnsis (Hall and Meek). 

 Turritella renauxiana D'Orbigny. 

 Cerithium tramatensis Cragin. 

 Cerithium interlineatum Cragin. 

 Pteria salint'n.sis Whito? 

 Xatica humilLs Cragin. 



It contains also a considerable number of 

 additional forms including uniinonites, not yet 

 determined. It is unfortunate that no ade- 

 quate study of the Woodbine fauna has ever 

 been made. 



FLORA 



The flora of the Woodbine sand described in 

 the following pages amounts to only 43 species. 

 It is hence inadequate for a correct estimate 



« Stephenson, L. W., U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 120, p. 145, 1918. 



of its botanic facies. and the absence of forms 

 normally jiresent in beds of e(|uivalenl age 

 may, with much probability, be allributed to 

 their lack of discovi-ry in the Woodbine, for 

 as far as it goes it is a perfectly normal assem- 

 blage of forms such as would be expected at 

 this horizon. There are no known ferns or 

 lower plants present, presumatdy because of 

 the coarseness of the sediments and the 

 trituration to which most of tlie plants have 

 evidently been subjected. 



Only two gymnosperms are represented, a 

 Podoznmittx and a Bnichi/phi/Ihnn. In this 

 respect the Woodbine flora is more like the 

 Dakota flora than it is like the corresponding 

 floras of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, in which 

 conifers are usually abundant individually and 

 varied specifically. No monocotyledonous an- 

 giosperms have been recognized in the Wood- 

 bine, and this lack, like that of the ferns, is 

 probably to be attributed to macerating and 

 triturating water action. 



The dicotyledons, which comprise 41 of the 

 43 identified forms, represent 31 genera in 21 

 families and 15 orders. They are well .scat- 

 tered among the families usually represented 

 in Upper Cretaceous floras. Elements that 

 are conspicuous b}' their absence when the 

 Woodbine flora is compared with the Tusca- 

 loosa flora of the eastern Gulf area, for ex- 

 ample, are the numerous species of figs and 

 magnolias, for there are only two of each of 

 those types in the Woodbine, and one of the 

 figs is a Dakota sandstone species and not a 

 Coastal Plain species. Other notable absen- 

 tees are Menispermites. Bauhinia, Lirioden- 

 dropsis. Lefivminosites. CelastropJnjlhim, Gre- 

 unopsis, Pterosper/mtfs. Sapotacitm, and other 

 less significant genera. The genus Celas- 

 trophyllum is especially abundant in the Tus- 

 caloosa, in which 12 species have boon recog- 

 nized, and it is almost equally abundant in the 

 Raritan formation. 



No genus is represented in the Woodbine by 

 more than two species except the form genus 

 CarpnJithvs. The largest family is the Laura- 

 ceae, with eight species; no other family has 

 more than three species, and only two families, 

 the Salicaccac and Magnoliacoae, reach that 

 number. Similarly the largest order is the 

 Thymi'loales, with eight species, and the only 

 order that approaches it in size is the Ranalos, 

 with five species. 



