DESCRIPTIONS OF SPECIES. 17 



It is far more interesting to identify a plant from Orcas Island with one 

 found in the Cretaceous strata of Greenland than to find it to be a new genus 

 or species, as it helps us to establish a geological parallelism, and shows the 

 wide diffusion of some species through the Cretaceous strata. By this plant 

 and a few others the Vancouver and Orcas Island beds are connected with 

 those of Atane, Greenland, and many common species correlate the Atane 

 beds with the Amboy Clays of New Jersey. 



Formation and locality: Cretaceous (Puget Sound group). Point 

 Doughty, Orcas Island, Washington. 



Order CONIFERS. 



Araucaria spatulata Newb. 



PI. I, Figs 5, 5a. 



Ann. N. Y. Lye. Nat. Hist., Vol. IX (April, 1S68), p. 10; Ills. Cret. and Tert. PI. 

 (1878) PL II, figs. 5, 5a. 



"The only specimen of this beautiful species contained in the collec- 

 tions of Dr. Hayden is a fragment of a branch, nearly half an inch in 

 diameter. On this the leaves are thickly set, their bases slightly decurrent, 

 being scarcely separated from each other. From these bases the leaves 

 radiate in all directions, and are slightly recurved. They are half an inch 

 in length, broadly spatulate, obtuse, and narrowed at the base. Along the 

 medial line passes a distinct carina, which vanishes toward the apex." 



From all living or fossil species, this seems very clearly distinguished 

 by the form of the leaves. Two species of Araucarites have been described 

 from the Cretaceous formation, of which descriptions are before me: 

 A. acutifoli'iis Endl. and A. crassifolius Endl. (Synops. Conif., pp. 301, 302), 

 neither of which has spatulate leaves. 



There is little doubt that this was a true Araucaria, and not very 

 unlike, in its general aspects, some species now living. 



It is also probable that these trees formed extensive forests on the land 

 during the Cretaceous period, as I have found these strata in some local- 

 ities in the West literally filled with large trunks of coniferous trees, many 

 mon xxxv 2 



