MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SUKVEY 857 



Order MALVALES 

 Family STERCULIACEAE 



Genus STERCUL1A Linne 

 [Sp. PL, 1753, p. 1007] 



STEECULIA MINIMA Berry 

 Plate LXXX, Figs. 1-3 



Sterculia mucronata Berry, 1903, Bull. N. Y. Bot. Garden, vol. iii, p. 90, pi. 



xliii, fig. 3. 



Sterculia minima Berry, 1906, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, vol. xxxiii, p. 177. 

 Sterculia minima Berry, 1906, Ann. Kept. State Geol Survey of New Jersey 

 for 1905, pp. 139, 140, 141, 152. 



Description. Leaves of small size, digitately bilobate, trilobate, 

 quadrilobate (and probably quinquelobate, although the latter type has 

 not been discovered). Length ranging from 3.75 cm. to 6.5 cm. Maxi- 

 mum width from tip to tip of the lateral lobes ranging from 3 cm. to 

 7 cm. Leaf substance subcoriaceous. Margins entire. Lobes narrow, 

 acutely pointed, somewhat conical, diverging from one another at angles 

 of about 35, separated by usually deep sinuses, rounded at their angles 

 and extending to or, usually, below the middle of the leaf. Leaf base 

 broadly cuneate or rounded. Primaries two or three, of aproximately 

 equal caliber, diverging from one another at angles of about 35 some dis- 

 tance above the base of the leaf. Petiole not preserved, probably relatively 

 long or it would not furnish sufficient leverage to break the leaf across the 

 base of the primaries as is the case in nearly every specimen. Secondaries 

 mostly immersed in the leaf-substance, a few that are visible show that 

 they diverge from the primaries at wide angles, at frequent, more or less 

 regular, intervals and have their ends connected by flat wide arches close 

 to the margins. 



The present species is the smallest of the American Cretaceous species 

 of Sterculia, although some of the smaller forms approach it in size and 

 appearance. It may be distinguished from the latter by its smaller size, 

 its less conical lobes, directed upward instead of laterally, and its supra- 

 basilar primaries. 



