274 MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 



it was there when he moved to the place several years ago, the previous occupant 

 of the house having been his uncle. He is confident that it was picked up in the 

 field near by, and he showed me another cj^cad fragment, badly weathered, that 

 had evidently formed part of a large specimen, stating that he himself had found 

 this specimen in his plowed field. There were also fragments of rock with lower 

 Chico invertebrates that had been picked up in the same field, and he directed me 

 to a locality near by, on beds whose strike would carry them up the valley through 

 this field, where Chico fossils were found in place. 



The valley of Grapevine Creek is here not more than one-fourth to one-half 

 mile wide and nearly parallel with the north-south strike of the strata exposed in 

 high ridges on either side. A short distance up the creek (south), however, its 

 course changes so that its source is some miles to the westward, and it probably 

 crosses both Knoxville and Horsetown beds, though no direct paleontologic proof of 

 this was found. Assuming that the cycad was brought to Pryor's field a greater or 

 less distance by Grapevine Creek, the possible sources of the specimen seem to be 

 limited to the Knoxville, the Horsetown, and the lower Chico, with the probabilities 

 in favor of one of the two last named. 



From the above there seems to be some doubt whether the specimen 

 really came from the Shasta formation or from the overhdng Chico, but 

 the probabilities are so largely in favor of the Horsetown age of the beds 

 containing it that it is tolerably safe to treat it under this head. 



The trunk certainly belongs to the genus Cycadeoidea as this genus 

 has been delimited in my previous papers." It is of about the average 

 size of those found in the Potomac formation of Maryland and the Lakota 

 formation of the Black Hills. Although much compressed laterally, the 

 shape is ovate or subconical, tapering uniformly from base to near the 

 summit, where it is rounded off. It is much more flattened above than 

 below, and the compression has been chiefly on one side, where the scars 

 are distorted, and above the middle there is a deep and large circular 

 depression, as if a stone had lain upon that part and forced the surface 

 inward. This pressure seems also to have come more from above, so as 

 to make the scars downwardly appressed. The upper edge is thin and 

 a small triangular piece has been broken out of it a little one side of 

 where the axis comes through. There is no distinct terminal bud, but 

 neither is there any depression caused by the loss of the apical leaves. 

 The base is very even and smooth, looking almost as if it had been ground. 



« Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, Vol. IX, April 9, 1894, p. 79; Vol. XI, March 31, 1897, pp. 6-9; Proc. U. S 

 Nat. Mus., Vol. XXI, 1898, pp. 196-229; Nineteenth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Surv., Pt. II, 1899, pp. 598-602 



