FERNS— SPHENOPTERIDE.E—SPHBNOPTERIS. 39 



usually fork ouce, but a portion of the nervils in the lower part of the lobes 

 apparently springing directly from the midrib; fructification unknown. 



This delicate species, which is closely related to Sphenopteris mixta, is 

 represented by several specimens. It appears, however, to differ from the 

 latter in having its lobes more rounded, obovate, truncate, and deejjlv dis- 

 sected, the margins less sinuate, and the sinuses more rounded. It is further 

 marked by a greater degree of rigidity in the pinnee; the rachises are not 

 punctate, the pinnules thinner, smoother, and the nerves thinner and more 

 obscure. The specimen illustrated in PI. XII, Fig. 3, is that from which 

 the detail published in my report on the Flora of the Outlying Coal Basins 

 was prepared.^ 



Localities. — Owens's coal bank, U. S. Nat. Mus., 5516 (?), 5517; Pitcher's 

 coal bank, U. S. Nat. Mus., 5802; Hobbs's coal bank, U. S. Nat Mus., 5687. 



Sphenop'j'eris Wardiana n. sp. 

 PI. XI, Figs. 1, 2. 



Frond polypinnate, thin and extremely delicate; raeliises of the larger 

 pinnse slender, very obscurely and very iinely striated; secondary (!) 

 pinnse linear, or linear-lanceolate, slightly flexuous ; ■ pinnae of the next 

 order alternate, open to nearly a right angle, close or slightly* touching, 

 triangular to linear-triangular, slightly flexuous, becoming lax in the upper 

 part, which is provided with pinnatifid pinnules above tlie ultimate pinute ; 

 ultimate pinnae alternate, open, the lower ones at a rigiit angle to the rachis, 

 short, oblong-triangular or ovate-triangular, a little distant, sometimes 

 touching or nearly contiguous, and joined along the rachis by an exti-emely 

 narrow border ; pinnules extremely small, alternate, oblique, rarely touch- 

 ing, ovate or obovate when very small, entire, round, attached by the whole 

 base or cohering one-third the way up, or, when larger, crenulate-sublobate, 

 cut into 2 to 5 round or oblong-round oblique lobes, which are connate most 

 of their length, becoming separated by a deeper decurrent sinus when fully 

 matured as pinnules; nervation obscured in the thick texture of the 

 lamina; primary nerve originating at a somewhat open angle and forking 

 to supply a nervil to each lobe or crenulation; fructification unknown. 



' Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 98, pi. ii, fig. 6. 



