TRELEASE: THE ANCIENT OAKS OF AMERICA 493 
those who had believed in them at first (5). At present, only the 
following identities with European species stand, and these, appar- 
ently, because their representations have not been reexamined: 
CRETACEOUS—(Q. hieracifolia (Kas.), Q. straminea (Col.); EocENE— 
Q. Chamissonis (Alaska), Q. doljensis (Wyom.), Q. drymeja (Oreg.), 
Q. eucalyptifolia (Col., N. Mex., Miss.), Q. Godeti (Mont.); Mto- 
CENE—(. elaena (Col.), Q. Steenstrupi (Calif.). One European species, 
Q. Gaudini, very indefinitely reported as American, seems to have no 
ascertainable significance. 
Unfortunately until recent years nomenclature has been treated 
independently in the several branches of natural history, even in 
different, groups of the same kingdom. Under this uncorrelated 
procedure, fossil and existing species have been independently named, 
with the result that a given name may refer sometimes to the former 
yand sometimes to the latter although no idea of identity or even rela- 
tionship within the genus has been intended in their designation. 
No procedure appears sensible except the restriction of a given bi- 
nomial to a single species, and the acceptance of such a name as 
valid from its earliest publication, whether for a fossil or extant 
species. Application of this procedure causes a considerable number 
of changes among the names of American fossil oaks, as well as among 
species that are now living (6). 
On this continent, as in the Old World, the earliest appearance of 
Quercus is in the Cretaceous, for which 48 nominal species are known 
from scattered deposits in the Atlantic States of New York, New 
Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina; in Kansas and 
Nebraska in the Plains region; in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and 
New Mexico in the Rocky Mountains; in Utah in the Great Basin; 
and, quite isolated, in Vancouver in the northwest. None of these 
species is known to have survived Cretaceous time, and none bears 
striking resemblance to any existing oak, though holly-like leaves were 
found then as now. 
For the Eocene, 56 nominal species are reported from scattered 
deposits in Canada and (perhaps questionably) Mississippi in the east; 
from North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and New Mexico 
in the interior; and from Oregon, Washington and Alaska in the 
northwest. No species is known to have survived into the Miocene, 
and none appears to be related to existing species, though holly-like 
leaves are represented among these fossils. 
The nominal species for the Miocene number 42 and they have 
been found in scattered deposits from Maryland, the District of 
Columbia and Virginia in the east; and from Colorado, Montana, 
Idaho, Oregon, California and Nevada in the west. One of these 
33 
