158 



SHORTKR CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENf]KAL GEOLOGY, l!l21. 



Magdtliy, as a great niaiiy upper Haritan spe- 

 cies survived into Magothy time. There are 

 nine species common to the Woodbine and 

 Bhick Creelv formatitms, but six of these are 

 widespread and long-lived forms without espe- 

 cial signiiicance. Five of tlie Woodbine species 

 are common to the Eutaw ilora, and one ex- 

 tends as high as the Ripley formation of the 

 eastern Gulf area. 



RELATION TO THE FLORA OF THE DAKOTA 

 SANDSTONE 



The flora of the Dakota sandstone is very 

 large, embracing over 400 dcsciHx'd species. 

 It is also voiy obviously not all of tlic same age, 

 but outside of certain areas in Kansas and Ne- 

 braska no data are available for determining 

 what partcjf Dakota flora came from beds that 

 merit that term and what [)art came from beds 

 since discovered or susjx'cted to be different. 



Of the 4.3 Woodl)ine i)lants 30 are species of 

 the Dakota sandstone Ilora. The community 

 of facies is thus very great, and it is significant 

 that of these 30 common species all but 10 are 

 forms which their range in other formations 

 proves to rcpresi'nt what for want of a better 

 term might be termed the true Dakota ilora, 

 and three of these 10 arc ordy doubtfully tleter- 

 mined from the Morrison formation in Colo- 

 rado " and these three occur dellnitcly in the 

 Tuscaloosa, Raritan, and Magothy formations, 

 so that really 23 of the Woodbine plants are true 

 Dakota forms. I regard tli;' Woodbine as syn- 

 chronous with this undi'lijiiitcil Dakota sand 

 ston(^ which I regard as bearing the same rela- 

 tion to the Benton as the Woodbine docs to the 

 Eagle Ford and the Tu.scaloosa does to the 

 Eutaw. 



RELATION TO THE FLORA OF THE CHEYENNE 

 SANDSTONE. 



The relations between tln^ Woodbine Ilora 

 and tliat of the Mentor formation of central 

 Kansas are imknown anil will j-emain so until 

 the Mentor flora is carefully ccillectcd and 

 studied. The Cheyenne sandstone of southern 

 Kansas contains a considerabh' Ilora, recently 

 studied by me, V)ut flici-e is not a single species 

 comjuon to the Woodbine and Cheyenne. Al- 

 though both floras consist largely of so-called 

 Dakota forms, some of these in the Cheyenne 



" Knuwitoii, F. II., Am. Jour. Sci., 4th si<r., viil. i'J. pp. lS9-lfl4, 1920. 



sandstone are forms that may have come origi- 

 nally from the unrecognized Cheyenne sand- 

 stone or the su|i posed ecpiivalent Mentor forma- 

 tion, and not from th(> true Dakota sandstone. 

 The majority lack an outside distribution. 



The Woodbine plants, on the other hand, as 

 shown by the comparisons in the preceding 

 sections, are nearly all well-known species of 

 formations of known age of the Coastal Plain. 

 Tliere can not be the slightest doubt that the 

 Woodbine sand is younger than the Cheyenne 

 sandstone and synchronous with the true 

 Dakota sandstone of the Western Interior. 

 The Woodbine is also certainly younger than 

 those l)etls in the West formerly confused with 

 the Dakota and now known as the Purgatoire 

 formation. 



RELATION OF THE WOODBINE FLORA TO 

 FLORAS OF OTHER AREAS. 



None of the Woodbine species have been 

 identified in the formations of the Montana 

 group. Eight of the Woodbine species are 

 found in the Atane beds and six in the Patoot 

 beds of western Greenland. 



The similarities (if tlie flora to European 

 Upper Cretaceinis floras are reasonably close, 

 but these similarities naturally seldom extend 

 to the identical species, and where they do the 

 jjarticular forms are wide-ranging and long- 

 lived species of slight value in ]n'ecisc correla- 

 tion, as might be expected. The Woodbine 

 contains five species common to European beds 

 referred to th(> Cenomanian and three addi- 

 tional that are tentatively recognized at this 

 European horizon. Simihu-ly two species are 

 identical witli foi-nis that occur in the Europi^an 

 Turonian. None of the species are known in 

 the Emscherian of Eui-ojie, although Dcvahpiea 

 itisiijiiifonriis of tlie Woo<lbine is, as its name 

 inilicates, ver\ close io the European vSenonian 

 species T>( irdhjiKd iuskjuis: Dcbe}-. 



The intrinsic character of the Woodbine 

 Ilora necessitates considering it as either Ceno- 

 manian or Turonian when judged according to 

 Eun)pean standards. From its relationslup 

 with other more extensive formations of the 

 Coastal Plain such as the Tuscaloosa and Ma- 

 gothy, in which the evidence is clearer, I would 

 bo inclineil to consider the Woodbine flora as of 

 Turonian age. 



