1902] 



1^0 TES ON SASSAFRAS 



441 



Harker and along the Salina river, Kansas ; Glen Cove, Lon^r 

 Island, and at Martha's vineyard. Velenovsky identifies it in 

 the Cenomanian of Bohemia, and Oswald Heer's Greenland 

 specimen which he refers to 5. reairvata probably belongs here 

 (Fl. Foss. Arct. 6: pi. 39. fig. 4). 



Sassafras subintegrifolium Lesq. — This leaf Lesquereux 

 refers =♦ doubtfully to this species. He is positive that it is refer- 

 able to some member of the Lauraceae, comparing the secondary 



venation to 



Acsculap 



the nearly round or 



The tertiary system and general outline arc 



* 



polygonal reticulation to that of Benzoin. Later '5 he beh'eved 

 that it represents only a deformation of 5. crctacetim, especially 

 the var. obtusttm. The bilobate form i% included by Newberry in 

 his ^. cretaceum, and Lesquereux seems inclined to agree with this 

 reference. Their two figures of bilobate leaves, however, are 

 very dissimilar. 



clearly like Sassafras, the secondaries are more ascending, caus- 

 ing the sinus to be midway between the primary and the first 

 secondary, instead of the secondary running to it and becoming 

 marginal as occurs in the majority of modern leaves; the pri- 

 mary to the entire side is straighter; the lateral branches of the 

 primaries are longer and straighter than in the modern leaf; the 

 pair of secondaries below the primaries is also a character not 

 found in modern leaves, where the lowest lateral branches from 

 the primaries and joins the marginal veins to form an inverted 

 triangle. Passing over the ambiguous form whose positive rela- 

 tions are obscure, we would say in regard to the bilobate form 

 that, while it lacks the basal nervation and the secondary to the 

 sinus of the modern leaf, it is similar in outline, in primary and 

 tertiary venation, and more nearly resembles Sassafras than any 

 other leaf-form. We would therefore retain it in this genus, 

 keeping it separate from the 5. cretacewn of Newberry, 



The Laramie species comprise three or four forms. The 

 first, Sassafras sp. Lesq., from six miles above Spring c^hon, 

 Montana, is not afterward mentioned by that author, and as it 

 was never figured we can dismiss it as an undeterminable frag- 

 ment. We mention also Dawson's Sassafras sp., from the 



=^Cret. Fl.//.j./^.5. 



*SCret. and Tert. Fl. 



