3 2 
Lesquereux. ] 324 |Mareh I, 
CORDAITES SERPENS, sp. Nov. 
Pl. L, fig. 1-4 
Stems narrow, fifteen to twenty-five centimeters thick when compressed, 
covered with a thin coaly opaque layer of bark, marked by somewhat dis- 
tant semi-lunar scars of leaves. Leaves at right angles to the stem, sub- 
linear or slightly enlarging upwards, eight to ten millimeters broad, 
rounded in narrowing to the point of attachment, distinctly veined. Pri- 
mary nerves nearly at equal distance, effaced towards the borders, three or 
four in three millimeters, with three to five, more generally three, very 
thin intermediate secondary veins. Top of stems abruptly terminating 
int? a broad, flat leaf, as broad as the stem, covered with double coating of 
couly matter, the upper one somewhat thick, destroyed near the point of 
conjunction with the stem, but distinctly nerved like the lower one, thick 
also, whose nervation is of the same character as that of the leaves, the 
primary veins only a little closer, showing in relief on the under surface, 
thin, obtusely keeled careens. 
The specimens figured elucidate the species as far as it has been possible 
to see it. In fig. 1, representing the only specimen with leaves, those 
coming out of the stem, near its point of disruption, are narrower and di- 
vided in flexuous, linear-lanceolate, pointed laciniz, deeply marked by fas- 
ciles of veins. In fig. 2, the abrupt termination of the stem is clearly 
marked in conjunction with the terminal leaf. Fig. 3 has the upper part, 
the bark, destroyed by maceration. The stem is preserved in its cylindrical 
state, not compressed, and shows the transverse ribs of Artista perfectly 
distinct, obtuse. The depression in fig 3, which seems upon the figure as 
a corrodation or a destruction of the stem by maceration, is an abrupt ter- 
mination as in fig. 2; for the coating of coaly matter, nerved like that upon 
the terminal leaf, covers the declivity to the border of the cylinder. 
Professor Dawson has a branch of Sternbergia or Artisia* pith, which 
he says is probably of a Dadoxylon, which represents this abrupt termina- 
tion in a most remarkable manner, the pith being one and a half centimeter 
thick, terminating in acone ofsix or seven gradually smaller rings, the last 
one only half a centimeter in diameter. (Geol. Survey of Canada, 1871, PI. 
III, fig. 28). He supposes also referable to Dadowylon another fragment 
of the same character, bearing on one side a piece of thick bark as we see 
it bordering the stem of fig. 3. It is represented in Canadian Naturalist, 
May 1861, as Dadozylon Ouangondianum, and considered by the author 
as a conifer. 
Fig. 4, of our plate, reduced in size, represents a long stem of this 
species, flexuous, narrower per places, especially in the middle, somewhat 
inflated at both extremities ; it is fifty centimeters long, varying in width 
from twelve to twenty-four millimeters. covered with close, tumescent 
scars of leaves, which are obtusely rhomboidal, six millimeters in hori- 
*The names are synonymous, referring to those cross ribbed branches which 
Corda considered as stems of Lomatophloios. 
