284 MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 



After my return from the field, viz, during the month of November, 

 I unpacked the specimens, labeled them, and made a preliminary study 

 of them. 



As Professor Fontaine was engaged the entire winter of 1895-96 

 in determining the collections from the Black Hills, the Kootanie collec- 

 tion was not sent to him till the end of March, 1896. Mr. Weed's collec- 

 tions were still in his hands, and he worked them up all together. After 

 a preliminary examination he wrote me, under date of April 20, 1896, 

 as follows: 



I have gone carefully over all the Montana material. The flora is distinctly 

 Neocomian, but in the grouping of species quite unique. It has very little in 

 common with the Potomac, and not much with the plants of the Great Falls district. 

 Many of the species are new, and most of those that may be identified with described 

 species belong to the Wealden of Hanover or to the Neocomian of Japan. Bunker's 

 plant, now called Nilsonia schaumburgensis, is conspicuous for its abundance. 



It was about this time that the present series of papers was planned, 

 and it then became necessary to take up the older Mesozoic material 

 in advance of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic flora of Oroville, Cal., of 

 which the principal collections were made by me the same season as those 

 from Montana, was put through and the work on the Kootanie plants 

 delayed. It was not until June 14, 1897, that Professor Fontaine's final 

 report on all the collections was completed and forwarded to me by him. 



The following is Professor Fontaine's final report on the collections 

 made by Mr. Weed and myself in the vicinity of Grafton and Geyser: 



NOTES ON SOME LOWER CRETACEOUS (KOOTANIE) PLANTS FROM MONTANA. 



By Wm. M. Fontaine. 



In April, 1895, I received from Dr. F. H. Knowlton 10 specimens 

 of fossil plants, with the request that I should examine them, as Doctor 

 Knowlton recognized them as indicating a Kootanie age for the strata 

 yielding them. They had been collected by Mr. AV. H. Weed in the 

 summer of 1894, near Grafton, Mont., on the flanks of the Little Belt 

 Mountains. Somewhat later Doctor Knowlton sent me 5 additional 

 specimens from the same locality, collected by Mr. Weed." 



" These are the collections mentioaed above, upon which Professor Fontaine reported in April, 1895, 

 which report was published by Mr. Weed in the paper of Weed and Pirsson, on the Geology and Mineral 

 Resources of the Judith Mountains of Montana: Eighteenth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Survey, Pt. Ill, 



