86 THE LATER EXTINCT FLORAS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



gently undulate; nervation very strongly marked and closely reticulate, 

 roughening the surface, camptodrome, but nerve branches sometimes 

 terminating in the margins of the middle lobe." 



Collected by Rev. Thomas Condon, to whom the species is dedicated 

 as a recognition of the important contribution he has made to paleontology 

 in the discovery and exploitation of these interesting plant beds. 



The remains of this remarkable plant occur in great abundance in the 

 Bridge Creek Tertiary beds, and it is represented in the collections made 

 there by a large number of specimens. Some of these indicate leaves 18 

 inches to 2 feet in length and nearly as much in breadth. The most 

 striking feature which they exhibit after their great size is the marked 

 reticulation of the surface, which has given a peculiar lacelike roughening 

 to the rock in the leaf impression. This character, as well as the general 

 form and nerve structure, is fairly well given in the figures, and no one 

 having seen them -will have difficulty in recognizing the fossil. 



The reference to the genus Ficus wants the confirmation of the fruit 

 before it can be accepted as established, but among all the leaves with 

 which these have been compared there are none to which they bear so 

 great resemblance as to those of the Moracese, and especially with those of 

 the leaves of Ficus and Artocarpus. The nervation is strikingly like that 

 of a number of species of Ficus, such as F. scabriuscula, F. oppositifolia, 

 F. Boxburghiana, F. sycomorus, and perhaps to none more than to that of 

 the common fig, F. Carica. Hence, with regret in adding to the already 

 large number of ill-defined fossil species of Ficus, it has seemed best 

 to provisionally refer these leaves to that genus, giving them a place to 

 which, without the evidence of the fruit, they are apparently as much 

 entitled as any others. Sometime the fructification will be found, and then 

 all doubt will be set at rest. There is good evidence that the genus Ficus 

 was well represented in the luxuriant, warm temperate or subtropical flora 

 which prevailed over so much of North America during the Tertiary age, 

 as it is now in the forests of tropical and subtropical America. At the 

 same time it is necessary to say that of the large number of species of 

 Ficus more than 20, which have been described as occurring in our 

 Tertiary rocks, the identification has been in many instances based upon 

 evidence that must be regarded as unsatisfactory. 



One of the most striking characters of these leaves is formed by the 



