782 SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY 



Brachypliyllum is chiefly an older Mesozoic type, but it remains abund- 

 ant through the Lower Cretaceous, two species having been described 

 from the Potomac group of Maryland and Virginia. It is a waning type in 

 the Upper Cretaceous represented by but a single species, the one under dis- 

 cussion, and the following variety, which persist as high as the Senonian. 

 Both are widely distributed, and the type is recorded from Long Island, 

 New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina, and from the 

 Dakota group of Kansas and the Montana group of Wyoming in the West. 

 It is probably represented in the Patoot beds of Greenland by the material 

 which Heer erroneously refers (loc. cit.} to Moriconia. While it is not 

 recorded from Europe, Velenovsky has described remains from the Ceno- 

 manian of Bohemia which appear to be identical with the American 

 representatives of this species, referring them to the Jurassic genus 

 E chinostrobus of Schimper. 1 



Hollick and Jeffrey have recently argued from a study of specimens 

 from Staten Island with structure preserved (loc. cit.}, that this species 

 is related to the family Araucariacece. 



This species is extremely common in the upper Earitan beds at South 

 Amboy, New Jersey, and their eastward extension on Staten Island, but 

 has not been collected from any of the plant-bearing horizons of the lower 

 Earitan. Professor Newberry described (loc. cit.} large cones which he 

 found associated with these twigs, and which he thought were related to 

 them, although this seems improbable. The cones are poorly preserved 

 and their affinities cannot be made out. They are very different from 

 previously described cones of Brachypliyllum, and the work of Hollick 

 and Jeffrey (loc. cit.} would seem to indicate that the present species had 

 small cones. The cones described by Professor Newberry, while they are 

 here retained in the synonymy of this species, are comparable to the 

 abundant cones from the older Potomac of Maryland which are referred 

 to the form-genus Abietites. No cones have been positively found asso- 

 ciated with the not uncommon occurrences of this species. 



1 Velenovsky, Gym, Bohm. Kreidef., 1885, p. 16, pi. vi, figs. 3, 6-8; Kv6tena 

 cesk6ho cenomanu, 1889, p. 9, pi. i, figs. 11-19; pi. ii, figs. 1-3. 



