44 



FOSSIL COAL PLANTS. 



as well as a slight acknowledgment of the many personal 

 favors received at his hands, I have given it his name. 



The symmetry and the 

 graceful outline of the 

 leaf of this plant of which 

 the unique form cannot 

 be expressed by any one 

 botanical term, (being 

 precisely that of a longi- 

 tudinal section of an air 

 pump receiver,)the beau- 

 tiful dentation of the re- 

 mote border, and its pe- 

 culiar nervation, render 

 it one of the most inter- 

 Fig i.-whittiesea eiegaus. esting specimens which 



have been discovered of the flora of a former world. 



The usual form and dimensions of the leaf are accurately 

 represented by fig. 1, but it is subject to considerable vari- 

 ation both of form and size — varying from half an inch to 

 two inches in width, and from one and a quarter to three 

 inches in length. 



The petiole is very 

 slender, becoming 

 more so as it recedes 

 from the base of the 

 leaf. I have speci- 

 mens in which it is 

 nearly two inches in 

 length. 

 Fig. 2, <2, represents, (somewhat magni- 

 nified,) the confluence of the nerves at the 

 base of the leaf, where they combine to 

 form a thickened border— much as in the 

 leaves ofSalishuria adiantifolia^ of which 

 however the nervation is quite difterent. 

 Fig. 2, 5, exhibits a portion of the other extremity of the 



Fig. 2. 



