MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 771 



WILLIAMSONIA DELAWARExsis Berry 

 Plate LI, Fig. 7 



Williamsonia delawarensis Berry, 1907, Johns Hopkins Univ. Circ., n. s. 

 No. 7, p. 84, fig. 4. 



Description. Fructification stalked; the peduncle expanding above 

 into a conical disk 1.2 cm. in diameter and bearing peripherally about ten 

 thick and broad coriaceous bracts (staminate sporophylls ?) which are 

 about 5 mm. in width and 2 cm. in length, pointed above and incurving. 

 No further details can be made out from the specimens, which are not 

 uncommon in the sandy clays of the Magothy formation near the deep 

 cut of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal near the Maryland-Delaware 

 Line. The very arenaceous character of these clays renders it almost 

 impossible to get out good specimens and the material rapidly disinte- 

 grates in drying, so that it has not been possible to secure permanent 

 material of any great value. Cycadaceous leaves have not yet been found 

 at this locality, although they are plentiful in the Magothy formation just 

 to the northward in New Jersey, while they are very common in the under- 

 lying Earitan formation throughout its extent. The latter formation 

 contains somewhat similar remains which Newberry 1 has called Palce- 

 anthus problematicus and which he is disposed to regard as a helianthoid 

 flower, although recognizing the difficulty in the way of preservation of 

 an ordinary flower of this sort and the incongruity of a Composite in the 

 Mid-Cretaceous flora. The Delaware specimen differs chiefly in having 

 only about half as many bracts and these correspondingly wider. A com- 

 parison with Newberry's fig. 8 will serve to bring out the resemblance of 

 these two forms. 



Hollick has described 2 a very poorly preserved and doubtful specimen 

 from the Staten Island Cretaceous, Williamsonia ? riesii, which is some- 

 what similar to Newberry's Palceanthus and to undescribed specimens 

 from Cliffwood, N. J. From the Dakota sandstones Lesquereux describes 

 Williamsonm elocata? a not very characteristic specimen. From the 



1 Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, vol. xxvi, 1896, p. 125, pi. xxxv, figs. 1-9. 



2 Trans. N. Y. Acad. Sci., vol. xii, 1892, p. 10, pi. i, figs. 2, 3. 



3 Fl. Dakota Group, 1892, p. 87, pi. ii, figs. 9, 9a. 



