DESCRIPTION OP SPECIES. 1 83 



Stekculia Snowii, sp. nov. 

 PI. XXX, Fig. 5; PI. XXXI, Figs. 2, 3; PI. XXXII, PI. XXXIII, Figs. 1-4. 



Leaves long petioled, membranous or subcpriaceous, large, palmately 

 two to five lobed ; lobes entire, lanceolate, taper pointed or acuminate, 

 greatly diverging; primary nerves palmately three to live, from the top of 

 the petiole, mostly simple, thick, percurrent; secondaries thin, oblique, 

 straight or slightly curved in traversing the blade, simply camptodrome. 



The largest leaves are more than 20™ long from the top of the petiole 

 to the apex of the median lobe, and are quite as broad or broader between 

 the apices of the lateral lobes; the petiole generally preserved is more than 

 20"°' long, strong, inflated at the base. Tlie divergence of the lobes aver- 

 ages 40°, the lateral ones being about at right angles to the median nerve, 

 and generally curved backward; the primaiy nerves are thick, the second- 

 aries thin, often obsolete, close, parallel, at an angle of divergence of 50°, 

 curving quite near the borders, the curves forming a kind of thin, mar- 

 ginal nerve along them ; the areolation is obsolete. 



These fine leaves, largely represented in the collection, vary in form 

 according to the distribution of the primary nerves and the divergence of 

 the lobes. PI. XXXI, Fig. 2, representing one of the best preserved leaves, 

 shows the general mode of divisions of the lobes and the nervation as 

 fiir as it can be seen; its petiole is as long as that of the specimen (PI. 

 XXXIII, Fig. 1). The leaf (Fig. 2) of the same plate is merely trilobate 

 but its divisions have the same character, while the one shown in Fig. 3 is 

 quadrilobate by subdivision of the lateral lobes on one side only. PI. XXX, 

 Fig. 5, shows a leaf five-lobate by the same kind of division of both lateral 

 lobes, and PI. XXXIII, Fig. 4, an abnormally bilobate one, one of the thin 

 lateral nerves not being strong enough for the production of a lobe and 

 passing toward the border as merely camptodi'ome. 



This fine species is evidently related to the preceding one, from which 

 it difters in its large size, the form of the lobes, and the nervation. Compar- 

 ing the char9,cter of these leaves with those of some Tertiary species, an 

 affinity of nervation is recognized with Liquidainhar europmim miocemon^ap. 

 & Mar. (Veg. Foss. Meximieux, PI. xxv. Fig. 4), and for the shape of the 

 leaves and the disposition of tlie lobes with rjntanus Sirii Ung.,' a peculiar 

 five-lobed leaf winch Schimper identifies with StercuUa Labruscn Ung. 

 Taken all together this new species is indeed related to some varieties of S. 

 Labrnsca, the leaves of which are figured as being five-lobed (Engelhardt, 



I Flora V. Sotzka, p. 166, PI. xxxvi, Fig. 1. 



