FOSSIL COAL PLANTS. 43 



In the last and preceeding numbers of the Annals of 

 Science was published a catalogue of such fossil plants as 

 have, up to the present time, come under my observation. 



Among the species there enumerated are many which 

 I have considered new to science. Of these I propose to 

 publish figures and descriptions in the succeeding numbers 

 of that journal, selecting a medium which will spread such 

 information as I have to communicate, on the subject of 

 fossil botany, more widely than any other, throughout the 

 region where this interesting branch of natural science 

 can be most successfully cultivated. 



By doing this I flatter myself I shall render some service 

 to such of the geological collectors of the West as have, 

 for want of the necessary books of reference, been com- 

 pelled to leave their fossil plants, however beautiful or 

 abundant, among their res duhiae. 



WHITTLESEYA — NEWB. 



Frond simple or pinnate — nerves fasciculate— confluent at the base, not dicli- 

 otomous, (median nerve none.) Fructification unkown. 



The characters of this genus can not be fully given until 

 other species are discovered, which may be associated 

 with the one upon which the generic description given 

 above is based. It is evident, however, that the peculiar 

 nervation of this plant, (W. elegans,) must exclude it from 

 all known genera. 



W. ELEGANS — NEWB. 



Frond (pinna?) simple, thick, sub-cuniform, truncate, acutely dentate, round- 

 ed at the base, and abruptly contracted into a long slender petiole, nerves 

 parallel, converging into the teeth, in which the fascicles terminate. 



This interesting fossil was first discovered by Col. Charles 

 Whittlesey, in a coal mine, opened by him, two miles 

 south-east of Cuyahoga Falls. He published a notice of it 

 in Amer. Jour. Science, New Series, Vol. VIIL, p. 375, but 

 with his characteristic modesty refrained from naming it. 

 As an act of justice to one who has done so much to extend 

 our knowledge of the geology and paleontology of the West, 



