828 SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY 



Urticacece. It must be confessed, however, that the data are still lacking 

 from which to settle the question. 



Occurrence. RARITAN FORMATION. Shannon Hill, Cecil County; 

 Forked Creek, Severn Eiver, Anne Arundel County, Maryland; East 

 Washington Heights, District of Columbia. 



Collections. Maryland Geological Survey, U. S. National Museum. 



Genus PROTOPHYLLUM Lesquereux 

 [Cret. Fl., 1874, p. 100] 



PROTOPHYLLUM STERNBERGII Lesquereux 

 Plate LXII, Figs. 1-3 ; Plate LXIII, Figs. 1, 2 ; Plate LXIV, Fig. 3 



Pterospermites sternbergii Lesquereux, 1873, Ann. Kept. U. S. Geol. Survey, 



Terr. (Hayden), for 1872, p. 425. 

 Protophyllum sternbergii Lesquereux, 1874, Cret. Fl., p. 101, pi. xvi; pi. 



xviii, fig. 2. 

 Protophyllum sternbergii Lesquereux, 1892, Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, vol. 



xvii, p. 189, pi. xlii, fig. 1. 

 Protophyllum sternbergii Berry, 1911, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, vol. xxxviii, 



p. 411. 



Description. Leaves of large size, ranging from 13 cm. to 25 cm. in 

 length by from 10 cm. to 20 cm. in maximum width, which is at a point 

 below the middle ; broadly oval in outline, with an obtusely pointed apex 

 and a cordate or slightly subpeltate base. Margins entire, somewhat 

 undulate. Midrib stout. Secondaries stout, about ten or eleven sub- 

 opposite to alternate pairs, the lower pairs branching from the midrib at a 

 wide angle which becomes acute in the upper pairs. The secondaries are 

 all craspedodrome and send off one or two strong craspedodrome branches. 

 Tertiaries fine, transverse. Texture coriaceous. 



This species, which has not hitherto been found outside of the Dakota 

 sandstone, from which horizon it was described as a species of Ptero- 

 spermites by Professor Lesquereux as early as 1872, is not uncommon in 

 the Earitan deposits of Maryland. The specimens, partly because of the 

 large size of the leaves, are rather fragmentary, some of the more complete 

 fragments being figured. There can be no question of their identity with 

 the western forms of Protophyllum-, although the true systematic position 



