304 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.40. 



ill their mode of branching. The leaves are squamate, very short, 

 thick, appressed, and densely crowded. Phyllotaxis spiral. In life 

 the leaves must have been more or less fleshy, mutual pressure caus- 

 ing them to assume a pentagonal or hexagonal outline, with a dorsal, 

 slightly projecting carina or boss becoming more or less obliterated 

 with age. Leaf surfaca more or less striated, the strise converging to 

 the obtuse apical point (at least this is true of our American Creta- 

 ceous species). The leaf-scars on old branches are said to be rhom- 

 boidal and continuous, remotely suggestive of Lepidodendron. 



A variety of cones have been referred to this genus usually upon 

 the unreliable evidence of association in the same stratum. Even 

 when cones are found in actual connection with the leafy twigs their 

 preservation is such that positive evidence of botanical relationship 

 is not available. Newberry describes l a large cylindrical cone with 

 a length of 20 centimeters and a diameter of 4 centimeters and having 

 spatulate scales, which he is quite positive is the cone of the BracJiy- 

 phyUum so common in the upper part of the Raritan clays of New 

 Jersey. As against these cones described by Newberry most cones 

 referred to BrachyphyUum have been small and somewhat spheriodal 

 in shape. Thus Zeiller described branches of BrachyphyUum from 

 the Lias of Madagascar which bore small ovoid cones with rhomboidal 

 scales very suggestive of Sequoia and he seems to think it probable 

 that some of the forms of BrachyphyUum are referable to the Taxodieas 

 while others have an affinity with the Araucarieae. Saporta 2 figures 

 elliptical Walchia-like cones which he found associated with Brachy- 

 pliyllurn jauberti, gracile, and moreauanum in the French Jurassic 

 while Heer describes 3 and figures spherical cones with polygonal 

 scales attached to twigs of his BrachypTiyllum insigne from the Lower 

 Oolite of Siberia, and other records of a very similar nature might be 

 mentioned. Fontaine has recorded three obscure varieties of small 

 cones from the Patuxent beds along the James Kiver in Virginia 

 which he refers to BrachyphyUum. 4 They are very indefinite and 

 poorly preserved but may be correctly identified. Finally Hollick 

 and Jeffrey have rendered it extremely probable 5 that the wide- 

 spread coniferous scales of the mid-Cretaceous referred to Dammara 

 are related to BracJiyphyUum and these authors have proved, at least 

 in the species formerly known as Dammara microlepis Heer from 

 Staten Island, a relation to twigs of the Brachyphyllum type, which 

 relationship would seem to effectually disprove the identity of the 

 cones described by Newberry. 



i Newberry, Flora Amboy Clays, 1896, p. 51, pi. 7, figs. 3, 4, 6. 



aSaporta, Plantes Jurassiques, vol. 3, 1884, pp. 341, 349, 365, pi. 165, figs. 1, 2; pi. 167, fig. 2; pi. 171; 

 figs. 5-9. 

 s Heer, Flora Foss. Arct., vol. 4, pt. 2, 1876, p. 75, pi. 13, fig. 9. 



« Fontaine, Monogr. U. S. Geol. Surv., vol. 15, 1S90, pp. 223, 224, pi. 135, figs. 8, 9; pi. 168, fig. 2. 

 6 Hollick and Jeffrey, Amer. Nat., vol. 40, 1906, p. 200. 



