descriptio;n of species. 205 



Habitat: 8evon miles fnnn Glascoe, Kansas. Nos. 425 and 472 of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology of Cambridge, Massachusetts. No. 126 

 of the collection of Mr. R. D. Lacoe, from Pipe Creek, Cloud County, 

 Kansas. 



LiKiODENDRON Meekii Heer. 

 PI. XX VI II, Figs. 5,0. 



Phyll. Crdt. du N61)r., p. 21, PI. iv, Figs. 3, 4 ; Newberry, Illust. Cret. and Tert. PI., PI. 

 VI, Fig. 5 ; Lesquereux, Cret. and Tert. FL, p. 73. 



Leaves small, constricted in the middle, panduriform, round, lobate at 

 base, deeply emargiuate; lobate at apex. 



The species is represented only by the two figures copied in Ileer's 

 Phyll Cret. du Nebr. (loc. cit.), from figures communicated by Dr. F. V. 

 Hayden. The same figiu-es have also been reproduced in Newbeny's 

 Illustr. (loc. cit.). No other leaves of this character have been found either 

 in Greenland or in Kansas. Prof. Heer has considered them as mere vari- 

 eties of the preceding species, of which the leaves have been abundantly 

 found in Greenland, and has described them in Fl. Foss. Arct., vol. 6, Abth. 2, 

 }i. 89, as L. Meekii var. genuinum. As far as can be seen from the figure the 

 (liiference is in the smaller size of the leaves of the so-called variety, and 

 the contraction in the middle producing two round, lateral, basilar lobes, 

 and by emargiuation of the apex two upper lobes of the same charactei'. 



These leaves do not appear to merely represent a variety but a species, 

 derived from the original simple form by median contraction producing 

 more complex, lobed leaves. To strengthen his supposition that the lobate 

 form is a mere variety. Prof Heer recalls the fact that L. fulipifera L. has 

 not only leaves of very difterent size, but also of various forms, among 

 them some nearly circular small ones not at all lobate, but merely flat or 

 emargiuate at apex, like that of PI. XXIX, Fig. 4. But the small leaves of 

 the living species are undeveloped forms appearing later at the base of the 

 annual branchlets, and always very few in number in com])arison to those 

 of a normal form and of a whole tree. In case of preservation by fossili- 

 zation they should, of course, be very rarely found, while those of a perfect 

 state of conformation would be most common. Here we have, on the con- 

 trary, an abundance of the entire leaves merely emargiuate at apex, most 

 of all being larger than the compound ones. I therefore regard the simple 

 form as the original, the others as local, though derived from it; and these 

 of course may be adniitted as varieties or as species. From the remarkably 



