DESCRIPTIONS OF SPECIES. 89 



a remarkably strong, straight, smooth midrib ; pinnate, delicate, irregularly 

 spaced, branched camptrodome lateral nerves. Except that they are more 

 lanceolate and pointed, these leaves would hardly be distinguishable from 

 those of Ficus elastica if fossilized. In form, exactness of outline, and 

 strength of midrib, they resemble the leaves of Nerium, but the nervation 

 is quite different. 



Formation and locality: Cretaceous (Dakota group). Fort Harker, 

 Kansas, and Blackbird Hill, Nebraska. 



Protoficus iisLEQUALis Newb. 

 PI. LVIII, fig. 2; LX, fig. 1. 

 Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. V (March 21, 1883), p. 512. 



"Leaves 4 to 5 inches long, by 3 inches wide; oval, pointed at the 

 summit, narrowed and rounded at the unsymmetrical base ; margins entire 

 or in part undulate; nervation strongly defined but open; about seven 

 branches on each side of the midrib, the lower two or three giving off 

 branches below, the upper simple, arched upward, terminating in the 

 margin, the intervals between the branches spanned by numerous, generally 

 simple tertiary nerves." 



Collected by Dr. F. V. Hayden. 



The general aspect of these beautiful leaves is not well given in the 

 figure. They seem to have been thick and polished above, roughened 

 below by the strongly marked nervation. They resemble in many respects 

 the leaves of Protoficus, described by Count Saporta, from the travertines 

 of Sezanne, as will be seen by comparing his figure of Protoficus crenulata 

 (Fl. Foss. Sezanne, p 67, PL VI, fig. 5). Our leaves differ from that, 

 however, in this, that the base is unsymmetrical, the margin is entire or 

 undulate, and the nervation is craspedodrome. This latter character is not 

 common, but is not unprecedented among the figs, the leaves of several 

 species of which bear considerable resemblance to these, e. g., F. sycomorus. 



It will also be noticed that the leaves under consideration are not unlike 

 those described by Lesquereux under the name of Ficus planicostata var. 

 Goldiana (Tert. FL, p. 202, PL XXXIII, figs. 1-3), but differ from them 

 in the inequality of the base and the details of nervation. It seems highly 

 probable, however, that they should form species of the same genus. 



Formation and locality: Tertiary (Eocene!). Tongue River, Montana. 



