DESCRIPTIONS OF SPECIES. 21 



These branches show at regular intervals the former points of attachment of 

 deciduous (?) branchlets, but more of these are still in their places. They 

 may have been dead twigs, some of which would naturally fall and 

 accumulate with the leaves. The leaf-bearing branchlets are simple, and 

 though lying together in great numbers and crossing at every angle, are 

 distinct and disconnected. The probability would therefore seem to be 

 that the foliage of the tree was deciduous, and although we have as yet no 

 fruit to guide us, we may infer that it was not a Sequoia, but a Taxodium 

 allied to our deciduous cypress. The leaves on the permanent branches 

 are many-rowed, short, appressed, and awl-shaped. Those on the decidu- 

 ous (!) branchlets are two-ranked, much longer, linear, acute or rounded, 

 traversed by a strong median nerve, and decurrent at the base. The lower 

 leaves on the branchlets are also generally shorter, sometimes much shorter, 

 than those placed higher up. 



In my notes on these specimens, given in The Later Extinct Floras, 

 written before the publication of Professor Heer's series of works on the 

 arctic flora, these specimens were doubtfully referred to Sequoia Langsdorfii, 

 to which they bear a considerable resemblance, but the foliage seems to 

 have been more open and the leaves more decidedly decurrent. In these 

 characters they approach very closely to the foliage of Sequoia Norclen- 

 skiolclii, of which the description is published in the Fl. Foss. Arct, Vol. II, 

 Abth. Ill, Miocene Flora und Fauna Spitzbergens, p. 36, PL IV, figs. 4-38. 

 The correspondence is so close that I have been led to regard them as 

 probably identical. More material, including the fruit, will be necessary to 

 discriminate between these closely resembling conifers, and this reference, 

 which seems authorized by the character of the foliage, must be considered 

 as provisional until confirmed by evidence which is more conclusive. 



Formation and locality: Tertiary (Eocene ?). Yellowstone River, 

 Montana. 



Sequoia spinosa Newb. 



PL Lin, figs. 4, 5. 



Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. V (March 21, 1883), p. 504. 



"Branches slender; foliage open, rigid; leaves narrow, acute (acicular) 

 arched upward, appressed or spreading; spirally divergent; staminate 



