REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF FOSSIL PLANTS 

 IN THE II, S. NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



By Lester F. Ward, Honorary Curator. 



The work of the year has been in general a continuation of that out- 

 lined in the report for last year, the object in mind being the arrange- 

 ment of the specimens in such a manner as to facilitate their consultation 

 and study.- The work of rearranging and labeling the Carboniferous 

 specimens was continued to some extent, but the Museum assistant, 

 Mr. Theo. Holm, has spent the larger part of his time in caring for the 

 herbarium. Many specimens have been mounted and added to the 

 collection, and it has in other ways been made of greater assistance in 

 the study of fossil plants. 



During the year there have been added to the collection more exten- 

 sive and valuable accessions than ever before in the history of the de- 

 partment of fossil plants. The hist of these is the immense collection 

 of Potomac plants turned over by the U. S. Geological Survey through 

 Prof. William M. Fontaine, of the University of Virginia. This collec- 

 tion, filling thirty-one large boxes, and representing several thousand 

 specimens, embraces the entire series of types and duplicates used by 

 Prof. Fontaine in the preparation of his elaborate Potomac or Younger 

 Mesozoic Flora, which forms Volume xv of the Monographs of the 

 U. S. Geological Survey. This flora is a very remarkable and interest- 

 ing one. It embraces about 365 species, of which number 75 are dico- 

 tyledons of peculiar and archaic types, representing perhaps the oldest 

 dicotyledonous flora known in the world. 



At the same time the U. S. Geological Survey, through Prof. Fon- 

 taine, turned over the specimens representing the older Mesozoic flora, 

 which had been used by Prof. Fontaine in the preparation of Mono- 

 graph vi, entitled " Contributions to the Knowledge of the Older Meso- 

 zoic Flora of Virginia." This collection was contained in nine boxes, 

 and represented several hundred specimens. It is an exceedingly val- 

 uable collection, not only because it contains most of tlie types de- 

 scribed in the above work, but because it embraces many particularly 



fine if not unique specimens. 



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