THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN EEC4I0N OF CANADA. S 



good palœoutological evideuce ; since these leaves are quite as easily recognized Ly one 

 familiar with their forms and structures, as any other kinds of fossils. 



I shall only premise further that, in referring plants to particular genera and families, 

 I have not been influenced in the least degree by any preconceived ideas as to the probable 

 order of succession of vegetable forms. No one has a right to affirm that, in tlie case of 

 dicotyledonous plants for example, those families having mond'cious or diœcious flowers 

 should have appeared earlier or later than those having bisexual flowers. Long exiierience 

 in pakeontology has convinced me, that the earlier forms of any group of plants or 

 animals may be precisely those which certain framers of hypotheses would least have 

 expected, and that here, as in other departments of the study of nature, we must be pre- 

 ]>ared to take facts as we find them, in whatever way they may affect our a priori opinions. 



I. — KooTANiE Series. 



1. Filices. 

 DiCKSONIA, Sp. 



Pinnate, pinnœ linear, two centimetres long, with rounded sessile pinnules united at 

 their bases. Venation obscure, but apparently of the type of D. mncinna, Heer, from the 

 Jurassic of Eastern Siberia. The specimens are not c|uite so distinct as to warrant refer- 

 ring them to Heer's species, yet are so near to it that I hesitate to separate them. They 

 are decidedly of the same type. 



Collected by Dr. George M. Dawson at Martin Brook.' 



Applenium Martinianum, S. N. (Plate I. Fig. 1.) 



Bipinnate, piunre long, with somewhat stout petiole. Pinnules contiguous, broad, 

 curved upward, oblic[uely rounded at their extremities, attached by their whole bases. 

 Midrib delicate, evanescent at distal end, veins very fiue, oblique, forking twice. In 

 the specimens studied the pinnae are 9 centimetres long, and at right angles to the 

 rachis, and the pinnules are 15 millimetres long and 7 broad. 



This is a fine luxi^riant species, of the general type of the widely distributed Jurassic 

 species, A. Whitbyanum, and of its companion, A. spedahile. 



Collected by G. M. D. at Martin Creek and North Fork, Old Man Eiver. 



AsPLENiUM DiCKSONiANUM, Heer. (Plate III. Fig. 1.) 



Heer, Kreide Flora der Arctischen Zone, 1874, p. 31, Tab. I. 



This species, which, according to Heer, is very abundant in the Lower Cretaceous of 

 Greenland, is found at Crow's Nest Pass, near Canmore, and at Coal Brook ; and is very 

 plentiful in beds a little higher and belonging to the Intermediate series on the North 

 Fork of Old Man River. 



Collected by G. M. D. 



AsPLENiUM DisTANS, Heer. (Plate III. Fig. 7.) 



Heer, Jura Flora Ost-sibiriens. Peropleris receiitior, Phillips. Neurop/eri^ recenlioi, Lindley 

 and Hut ton. 



In subsequent description.s only tlie initials, G. M. D., will be given in the ca.se of .s|)ecimens.so collecteJ. 



