DESCEIPTION OF SPECIES. 57 



fossil. Still the points of resemblance are too great to permit the two to be 

 separated, and I think that there is no doubt that the two plants are spe- 

 cifically the same, with only such differences as should be expected in 

 localities so widely separated. 



Mr. E. Hitchcock has described in the "American Journal of Science " for 

 July, 1855, a species of Clathropteris found in the Connecticut Valley sand- 

 stone, which he calls Clathropteris rectiusculus. This in many points is much 

 like the normal C. platyphylla of Europe, and it is also something like the 

 Virginia plant. He gives a figure of three segments, isolated from each 

 other, but in such a position that they may well radiate from a common 

 point. Dana gives a figure of one of these lobes or segments on page 407 

 of his "Manual of Geology," revised edition. This plant seems to be smaller 

 than the Virginia fossil, and it has more delicate nerves. It can hardly, I 

 think, be separated from the normal C. platyphylla. Hitchcock says that 

 it is found at Easthampton, Mass., at an horizon about midway between 

 the base and summit of the Connecticut sandstones of Mesozoic age. In 

 his description he speaks of it as profoundly pinnatifid, and seems to have 

 had in mind the pinnatifid character of G. meniscioides which, as is well 

 known, is pinnately, not digitately, lobed. 



From statements made concerning other specimens found at this locality 

 it would appear that the Easthampton plant is digitately lobed. Mr. Hitch- 

 cock states that he presented to the cabinet of Amherst College a large speci- 

 men from Easthampton, showing in one place a large number of lobes or seg- 

 ments radiating from a central point. It may well be, however, that some 

 of the fossils found in the Connecticut sandstones are Dictyophyllum or 

 Camptopteris, and not Clathropteris. Dictyophyllum, as Schenk shows, has 

 numerous segments proceeding from two principal divisions of the rachis at 

 its base, while the divisions of Clathropteris are much more limited in number. 

 The nervation of Dictyophyllum also is near enough to that of Clathropteris 

 to cause, in poorly-preserved specimens, the two to be confounded. We 

 must then be cautious in deciding that all the digitately-divided, reticulated 

 ferns from the Connecticut sandstones are Clathropteris. Hitchcock states 

 that in the cabinet of Amherst College is a fine specimen of a radiating 

 Clathropteris from Gill, Mass., which shows seventeen distinct segments 



