764 SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY 



The genus Osmunda contains in the existing flora some six or seven 

 species of swamp-loving ferns, most of them confined to the northern 

 hemisphere, where they are wide-ranging. Three of these forms occur in 

 North America. 



Occurrence. MAGOTHY FORMATION. Deep Cut, Delaware. 



Collection. Maryland Geological Survey. 



Family POLYPOD1ACEAE 



Genus ONOCLEA Lmne 

 [Sp. PL, 1753, p. 1062] 



OXOCLEA INQUIRENDA (Hollick) Hollick 



Plate LI, Figs. 1, 2 



Osmunda obergiana Heer, 1874, Fl. Foss. Arct, Bd. iii, Ab. ii, p. 98 (pars), 



pi. xxvi, fig. 9d (non figs. 9-9b or pi. xxxii, fig. 7a). 

 Caulinites inquirendus Hollick, 1904, Bull. N. Y. Bot. Garden, vol. iii, p. 



406, pi. Ixx, fig. 3. 

 Onoclea inguirenda Hollick, 1907, Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, vol. i, 1906, pi. i, 



figs. 1-7. 

 Onoclea inguirenda Berry, 1911, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, vol. xxxviii, p. 401, 



pi. xviii, figs. 1, la. 

 Onoclea inguirenda Berry, 1914, Prof. Paper U. S. Geol. Survey, No. 84, p. 



14, pi. ii, figs. 7, 8. 



Description. Fragments of fertile fronds, not showing any lamina, 

 which appears to be reduced to short pinnate branches bearing one or 

 more spheroidal bodies interpreted as sori. These are uniformly 1.5 mm. 

 or slightly less in diameter. 



This species was originally described by Hollick (loc. cit.) and referred 

 to the genus Caulinites, but subsequently was removed to the ferns because 

 of its resemblance to the modern genus Onoclea, a resemblance that is 

 close and not at all fanciful. Earlier figured forms of the same character 

 were associated by Heer with his species Osmunda obergiana because they 

 were found in the same beds with the fronds of this species, although they 

 were not found in organic union with the fronds. These fruits are much 

 more like those of the modern forms of Onoclea than they are like those of 

 Osmunda, and they are identical with those which are the type of the 

 present species to which the writer has referred them. 



