DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES. 87 



which does not show the true distribution of the secondaries. There is no 

 reason, however, for doubting the reference of the leaf of the Dakota Group 

 to the species. 



Hnbitat: Near Fort Ilarker, Kansas. No. 2759 of the U. 8. National 

 Museum collection. 



Order BALANOPHORE^. 



WiLLIAMSONIA ELOCATA, Sp. nov. 

 PI. II, Figs. 9, 9a. 



Fragment of a cone or globose capitule, with deeply concave inside 

 part, boi-dered by oppressed, oblong, lanceolate scales, bearhig bristles at 

 apex, with base of a pedicel, the point of attachment of the capitule. 



I refer this fragment to Williamsonia, especially from its likeness to 

 some figures given of the species by Nathorst,' which, by means of cross 

 sections of the fruiting cones, exhibit this organism as a hollow, central 

 axis surrounded by imbricated scales, those of the borders or of the upper 

 part of the stem being short, iml^ricate, lanceolate, acute, tliose surround- 

 ing the hollow receptacle being longer and linear-lanceolate. The fragment 

 from Kansas, compared to the cone (loc. cit., PI. vii, Fig. 3) figured by 

 Nathorst, differs merely in having the scales shorter and tipped by hairs or 

 bristles. Although the specimen is too imperfect to offer positive points of 

 affinity, Saporta, to Avhom it lias been communicated, considers it as referable 

 to the genus Williamsonia, though not exactly congener to the Williamsonia 

 of the Jurassic, yet of a similar type which may be new, allied to the 

 Spadki florce, and at the same time analogous to that of Williamsonia. 



The following is a translation of what that celebrated author writes in 

 his Jm'assic Flora, vol. 4, liv. 37, p. i"22 : 



We have recently received from our friend, Leo Lesquereux, another fossil organ- 

 ism, or rather the hollow mold of that organism, discovered in the ferruginous 

 sandstone of the Dakota Group, therefore of the Ceiiomanian. One perceives in the 

 specimen, after molding the cavity in relief, a thick, short receptacle shaped like an 

 ovoidal, conical ball, mostly naked, and mai-ked on its surfixce by scars of insertion, 

 regularly placed in spiral, of a mass of scales, closely contiguous, inserted at right 

 angles upon the receptacle and surrounded by a thick, spinous apophysis, subulate at 

 base, shorter and less protruding toward the apex of the organism. These scales, 

 which answer evidently to sexual elements, easily disengaged at maturity, are not 

 without analogy, either by themselves or by the structure of the receptacle upon 

 which they were implanted, with the corresponding parts of the floral spadices of 



' Nagra anmiiikuingar om Williamsonia, Carruthers, Ofvers. k. Vet.-Akad. Furh., 1880, No. 9. 



