64 STUDIES IN GEOLOGY, No. 4 



uated this resemblance in the specific name chosen for the 

 Peruvian form. There is also considerable resemblance to 

 Thuites meriani Heer 22 of the Kome beds of Greenland. 



The genus Thuites was proposed by Sternberg in 1823 and 

 six species ranging in age from Jurassic to Tertiary were 

 enumerated at that time. The type was Thuites ciipressi- 

 formis Sternberg from the Jurassic of Scania a not very 

 characteristic form which has also been referred to Cauler- 

 pites. Thuites has been widely used for vegetative twigs, 

 particularly those from the Mesozoic, which agree in habit 

 with those of Thuja and other genera of the Cupressinacese. 

 Seward 23 made the proposal that the term Thuites be re- 

 stricted to those specimens with a demonstratable close affin- 

 ity with the existing Thuja, thus limiting it to a few Tertiary 

 species, and proposed the form-genus Cupressinocladus for 

 sterile vegetative shoots with the general habit of branching 

 and the cyclic more or less appressed leaves of the recent 

 Cupressinacese. 



It would be most desirable to distinguish in our classi- 

 fication between ascertained and possible relationships but it 

 seems to me that the author fools nobody but himself in try- 

 ing to go beyond the facts and as a form genus Thuites 

 means something which every student understands and which 

 is neither more or less than Cupressinocladus means. Pro- 

 fessor Seward has confessedly little use for taxonomic codes 

 or the so-called laws of priority, and although I fully sym- 

 pathize with this point of view it is purely a matter of expe- 

 diency and does not harmonize very well with the rather 

 numerous ill advised terms which this author has seen fit 

 to propose entirely ignoring the fact that a name is after 

 all merely a name and not a description or tag of relationship. 



22 Heer, O., Fl. Foss. Arct. Bd. 3, ab. 2, p. 73, pi. 16, figs. 17, 18, 

 1873- 



23 Seward, A. C, Fossil Plants, vol. 4, pp. 303, 305, 1919. 



