FERNS— RELATIONS OF PSEUDOPECOPTERIS AND MARIOPTERIS. 21 



PSEUDOPBCOPTERIS Lesquereux, 1880. 

 Coal Flora, vol. i, p. 189. 



Before introducing in the same classification tlie terms Mariopteris and 

 Pseiidopecopteris, concerning the apphcation of which there seems to be 

 some confusion, I wish to exphxin briefly my interpretation of the scope 

 and rehxtion of the groups originally and properly included under each 

 generic name. 



It will he remembered that the genus Pseiidopecopteris, as first proposed 

 by Lesquereux,-' was so defined essentially as to contain that portion of 

 Stiir's genus Biplothmemcr comprising the species with Pecopteroid and 

 Neuropteroid pinnules. In another place '^ I have already referred to the 

 relations of the genus Mariopteris Zeiller,* which was founded on a still 

 more restricted portion of Stur's genus. The original scope of the genus 

 Pseudopecopteris, as seen by the diagnosis' and figures, when compared with 

 the scope of the genus Mariopteris^ which antedates it, shows that the two 

 genera are largely the same, the latter being entirely included in the 

 former, though the essential characters are not similarlj- defined. It is not 

 improbable that Professor Lesquereux, had he been aware of Professor 

 Zeiller's work, would have either adopted the latter's classification or amended 

 the genus Mariopteris, extending it to include the Neuropteroid group of 



I Coal Flora, vol. i, 1880, p. 189. 



2 Culm-Flora, vol. il, 1877, pp. 226, 233. 



3 Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 98, 1893, p. 46. 



■•Bull. Soc. g(5ol. France, (3) vol. vii, 1878, p. 93. Fl. foss. terr. houill". Fr., 1878, pi. clxvii, 

 fig. 5; text (1879), p. 68. Fl. foss. houill. Valenciennes, test (1888), p. 159. 



s" Primary rachis forking near the base in diverging branches of equal size, or divaricate and 

 dichotomous; branches polypinnate, ultimate divisions often forked; pinnules connate or separated 

 to the base, of various shape, oblong-obtuse or ovate-lanceolate, oblique or in right angle, decurring 

 to the rachis and bordering it by a narrow vring; lateral veins oblique, generally forking once, the 

 lowest pair twice." Coal Flora, vol. i, 1880, p. 189. 



6 "Fronde composee de pennes quadripartites, h, sections bipinnees; le rachis primaire emit des 

 rameaux alternes, nus, qui se bifurquent sous un angle plus on moins ouvert eu deux courtes branches 

 sym^triques, dont chacune se bifurque a sou tour en deux pinnes biijiunees, la penue esterieure par 

 rapport h la bifurcation i^riucipale etant plus petite que eelle qui se trouve du cote interieur. Pinnules 

 plus on moins rapprochees, tantot soudees les unes aux autres, tantot libres et coutract^es il la base, 

 obliques et un peu decurrentes sur le rachis, entieres ou divisees en lobes pen profonds. La pinnule 

 inf(5rieure de chaque penue secondaire est habituellement d'une forme un peu difterente de celles qui 

 suivent, lobee au pinnatifide. Nervure mcdiane nette, se prolongcant presque jusqu'au sommet des 

 pinnules, ddcurreute a la base sur le rachis; nervures secondaires tr&s-obliques, g(5neralement dicho- 

 tomes, se divisant sous des angles aigus, naissant pour la plupart de la nervure mcdiane, mais 

 quelques-unes, a la base, naissant directement du rachis. Fructification inconnue." Veg. foss. terr. 

 houill. Fr., p. 68, 1879. 



