KNOWLTON] KOOTANIE PLANTS FROM GREAT FALLS, MONTANA I07 



these scattered collections could be assembled and carefully com- 

 pared, a number of forms now held to be different would be found 

 identical. Thus, specimens from Geyser doubtfully identified by 

 Fontaine as his Cephalotaxopsis ramosa prove to be a fern which 

 I have described as Oleandra gramincefolia, and from merely in- 

 specting the figures of what Dawson has determined as Heer's Pinus 

 (Cyclopitus) nordenskioldi, from Anthracite, British Columbia, I 

 suspect it may also be referable to this fern ; so, also, Newberry's 

 Baicra brez'ifolia is apparently identical with what I have called 

 Ginkgo sibirica. 



The geological age of the Kootanie formation has never been much 

 in question. In the first publication in which the formation received 

 its name and where we are afforded the first view of its floral con- 

 tents, Sir William Dawson says : "The Kootanie series should prob- 

 ably be placed at the base of the table as a representative of the 

 Urgonian or Neocomian, or, at the very least, should be held as not 

 newer than the Shasta group of the United States geologists and the 

 Lower Sandstones and Shales of the Queen Charlotte Islands. It 

 would seem to correspond in the character of its fossil plants with 

 the oldest Cretaceous floras recognized in Europe and Asia, and with 

 that of the Kome formation in Greenland, as described by Heer." 

 In his latest pronouncement on the subject he placed it with little 

 qualification in the Neocomian, while later Newberry and Fontaine 

 inclined to correlate it with the Wealden, the latter stating that he 

 regarded it as "being essentially of the same age as the Lower Po- 

 tomac of Virginia," which he placed in the Wealden. The flora of 

 the Kootanie contains species occurring in the uppermost Jurassic, 

 the Wealden of England, the Kome of Greenland, and the Lower 

 Potomac of Virginia, but from the fact that no traces of angiosper- 

 mous plants have thus far been detected in the Kootanie, though 

 occurring in the Lower Potomac, I should incline to agree with 

 Newberry in regarding the Kootanie as slightly older than the 

 Lower Potomac, though undoubtedly both are essentially in the 

 position of the Wealden. 



Following is a complete list of the localities whence came the 

 material included in the following report: 



(1.) First railroad cut west of smelter on high line track, north 

 side of Missouri River, Great Falls, Montana. Collected by Prof. 

 O. C. Mortson. 



(2.) Same as last, but slightly different bed. 



(3.) Flood siding 5 miles southwest of Great Falls, Montana. Col- 

 lected by C. A. Fisher. 





