18 FLOEA OF LOWER COAL MEASURES OF MISSOURI. 



prepared by Professor Lesquereux from a small, badly broken specimen, 

 loaned to me tlu'ougli the courtesy of Dr. Britts, is necessarily insuf- 

 ficient; a careful inspection with a weak glass shows the outline, nervation, 

 and striated surface to be the same as those seen more clearly on the better- 

 preserved specimens, some of which came from the same bed as the 

 original. My comparisons have been further aided by reference to a num- 

 ber of other examples identified by Professor Lesquereux since the publi- 

 cation of the species, and loaned by Dr. Britts, as well as by reference to the 

 Lacoe collection. 



The frond of JEremopteris missouriensis is tripinnate, if not quadripinnate, 

 appearing bifurcated at the base, the pinnse long, flexuous, often slightly 

 geniculate, and tapering to an acute point. The lobes of the pinnules, as 

 seen in PI. V, Figs. 2, 3, are always blunt, usually rounded at the end, and 

 in very many cases have a sinus in a truncate-obcordate apex. The ulti- 

 mate pinnse are more deeply divided and more symmetrical than repre- 

 sented in pi. liii, figs. 8, 8a, of the Coal Flora, while the nervation, like 

 that seen in many species of Diplotlmiema, consists of a single large flexuou.s 

 nerve passing into the pinnule and forking to permit a single nervil to pass 

 up into each lobe. 



The surface of the entire pinnule is striate with fine dark lines, appar- 

 ently composed of rows of short, closely appressed hairs or narrow hair-like 

 scales which are parallel to although entirely independent of the nervation, 

 as is strongly shown in slightly macerated specimens, or especially clearly 

 when the impression of the under sm-face of the limb is exposed. This 

 striation has been mistaken f-^r and inaccurately represented as nervation in 

 the above-mentioned figure. Those specimens which I have seen from the 

 same locality, labeled Sphenopteris furcata and Sphenopteris splendens by 

 Professor Lesquereux, I have found to be indistinguishable by any character 

 from Eremopteris missouriensis. 



It is quite possible that Eremopteris missouriensis should be placed in 

 the genus Diplothmema, between which genus and Eremopteris it seems to 

 be intermediate. It would not be at all sm-prising if the mode of division 

 characteristic of Diplothmema were discovered in Eremopteris missouriensis. 

 The resemblance of our species to Diplothmema palmatum (Sclump.) Stur^ 



' Stur, F:ane der Carbon-Flora, p. 310, pi. xxvii, fig. 3. 



