1873.]} S17 {Lesquereux. 
been mostly used for the figures and descriptions of the carboniferous flora. 
They supply a considerable amount of evidence on the relation of various 
forms which had been from fragments referred to different generic divis- 
ions or even to different families, and also on the peculiar mode of vege- 
tation of these plants. Certainly the vegetable paleontology of our coal is 
greatly indebted to this ardent, careful and very experienced collector. 
The American species of Cordaiies, as far as we know them up to 
the present time, are referable to different divisions which I have merely 
named in the margin. 
[CRASSIFOLIA. ] CORDAITES VALIDUS, sp. nov. 
Pl. XLVI, fig. 1, 2.* 
Leaves thick, very long, linear, as far as shown by the fragments, thirty- 
five centimeters long, half embracing the stem at the base, five to eight 
centimeters broad, slightly enlarged in turning to the inflated point of at- 
tachment whose scar is subcordate, narrowly, nearly equally and obscurely 
striate on the upper surface, where the veins, seven or eight per m#limeier, 
are immersed into the epidermis; more distinctly marked on the lower 
surface where they are obtuse or keeled, irregular in distance, three to five 
per millimeter, sometimes with an intermediate secondary vein, more 
generally with an obtuse furrow between them. 
The fragment of stem figured is more coarsely and irregularly striate than 
the leaves, the striz being here and there inflated, thus irregular in size, so 
that at first sight or without glass, the nerves do not appear continuous. 
They are so, however, two, sometimes three in one millimeter, even one 
millimeter apart. The coaly layer of the bark is about one millimeter 
thick, sometimes more. The same thickness of coal takes the place of the 
leaves upon the lower somewhat concave surface, under a coating which 
seems intermediate between the upper and lower faces of the leaves, and 
thus represents its thickness diminished by compression. 
The figure of the specimen seems to show the base of the leaf as decur- 
rent on one side. But the branch is broken, and presents the face oppo- 
site to the point of attachment, the apparent decurring base being merely 
the turning of the leaf to the point of attachment behind, and its lacera- 
tion from the broken stem. Fig. 2, represents the base of the leaves when 
detached from the stem, and flattened by compression. It is irregularly, 
deeply undulate-laciniate, with the base of the laciniz inflated, and the in- 
tervals corresponding with thick fascicles of nerves, dilated above. Fig. 2, 
shows the scar of a leaf upon a larger stem ; its form and width has no 
correspondent in any of those figured by Grand’ Eury in his Flare Carboni- 
fere for stems of Cordaites. This author, however, seems to have seen 
* The numbers of the plates are not definitive. They are indicated merely for 
reference to a few copies of the plates furnished, before lettering, to the Pro- 
ceedings of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia out of the edi- 
tion in preparation for publication in the yolume entitled ‘‘ Report of Progress 
of the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania; Fossil Flora, &e¢.”’ 
