MUSEUM OF COMrAUATlVE ZOOLOGY, 



229 



ceous leaves and other remains of plants are found always spread over 

 small areas, generally less than one or two acres in surface, and far dis- 

 tant from each other, so that in travelling over the prairies of Nebraska 

 and Kansas, the collector may wander for twenty to forty miles or more 

 without discovering a single fragment of fossil vegetable, and abruptly 

 come to one rich deposit where leaves are found in abundance. Gen- 

 erally each of these deposits has remains of plants of a peculiar group, 

 even sometimes of a single species. For example, Aspidiophylliun. leaves 

 are from one place only ; Aralia Saportanea, from two widely distant. 

 Protophyllivm and Sassafras^ or Aralwpsis cretaceus, and its varieties 

 abound at Thompson's Creek, while species of Salix and Podozamites 

 are from Elkhorn Creek and Glascoe ; and so on. The localities where 

 the specimens examined were found are twenty in number, and iri each 

 of them only two to a dozen species have been recognized. A group- 

 ing of this kind shows that the leaves were derived from trees grown in 

 place where the leaves are now found, the trees apparently covering hil- 

 locks, or dry surfaces of land, disseminated in wide lagoons. As floated 

 from a distant shore, the leaves should be more or less, but always, 

 mixed. Their fine state of preservation, their position generally flat, 

 confirm this supposition. 



3. A second lot of specimens from the same formation has been pro- 

 cured for the Museum in Colorado, near Morison, by Ile^", Arthur Lakes. 

 The number of specimens is small, and the species which they represent 

 are all, except one, already known from the Dakota group of Kansas. 

 Among them are Proteoides grevilliceformis, P. dapknogenmdes, Magnolia 

 alternaris, M. Capellini, described by Heer in the Phillites of Nebraska, 

 Sassafras cretaceus, Newb., Salix protecpfoUa, with Liriophylliim populi- 

 folmm, L. Beckio'dhi, Aralia Toionerl, Stercidia lugubrts, and species of 

 Ficiis, most of them found in Kansas, and already figured for the eighth 

 volume of the IJ. S. Reports. One of the species only, a peculiar small 

 form of Liriophylkmiy is new. 



4. The last addition of this year to the phytopakrontological depart- 

 ment of the Museum has been made by the acquisition of nine hundred 

 specimens of coal plants from Mr. T. T. Mansfield of Cannelton, Pennsyl- 

 vania. This locality has until now furnished to the coal flora an abun- 

 dance of vegetable remains of species rarely found elsewhere. Of the 

 genus Gordaites, for example, formerly known by separate leaves or 

 mere fragments of leaves only, specimens have been found there with 

 branches bearing leaves, and even flowers and fruit. A proportionately ■ 

 largo number of specimens of this kind are in the Cannelton collection, 



