FOSSIL PLANTS FEOM THE LATE TEKTIAEY OF 

 OKLAHOMA. 



By Edward W. Berry, 



Of the Johns Hopkins University. 



The following .short paper is based upon materials collected by 

 Prof. E. C. Case, of the University of Michigan, and presented by 

 him through the writer to the United States National Museum. 

 These collections were incidental in the exploration of the red beds 

 of Oklahoma in search for Permian vertebrates, under the auspices 

 of the Carnegie Institution. They were made from an outcrop of 

 chalk-like clay on the south side of Beaver Creek, near the since 

 abandoned post office of Alpine, about 10 miles east of Beaver City. 

 The matrix ig a light-colored fluffy clay which appears to be largely 

 a volcanic ash. No vertebrates were found associated with the plants 

 except a few undeterminable fishbones. A small undetermined 

 crustacean was also found in the clay. 



Darton^ in 1899 divided the Loup Fork of the central Great 

 Plains into the Arikaree and the Ogallala formations, regarding 

 the former as Miocene and the latter as possibly Pliocene in age. 

 Various local subordinate divisions have been recognized by the 

 field geologists in Kansas and Nebraska. Materials corresponding 

 in a general way to those of the Ogallala formation of Kansas and 

 Nebraska are widespread in western Oklahoma. These are clays, 

 sands, and gravels of exceedingly variable character and propor- 

 tions. They probably once covered the entire " panhandle " but are 

 now preserved chiefly on the uplands where the argillaceous cliffs 

 of these materials are locally known as " mortar beds " or " chalk." 

 The thickness varies from place to place and ranges in Beaver 

 County from thin remnants to upwards of 300 feet. These deposits 

 are, in the latter region, usually underlain by the red beds of the 



1 Darton, N. H., U. S. Geological Survey 19th Ann. Rept., pt. 4, p. 734, 1899 ; Pro- 

 fessional Paper 32, p. 176, 1905. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 54— No. 2256. 



627 



