214 FLORA OF LOWER COAL MEASURES OF MISSOURL 



coal bank. It is too jjoorly preserved to show the arrangement of the parts 

 or admit of a satisfactory identification by the superficial characters. 

 Locality. — Pitcher's coal bank, U. S. Nat. Mns., 6196. 



LEPIDOPHYLLUM Brongniart, 1828. 



1822. Filicites sect. Glossopteris Brongniart, Mem. mus. hist, nat., vol. viii, p. 232. 

 1828. Lepidoph}/lhtm Brongniart, Prodrome, p. 87. 



LEPIDOPHYLLUM JENNEYI 11. Sp. 



PL LIX, Figs. 1-3; PI. LXIII, Fig. G. 

 1897. LepidophyUnm sp., D. White, Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vol. viii, pp. 298, 300. 



Cones short, oval or slightly ovate, about 4 cm. in length and 2.5 cm. 

 in width; scales oblong-lanceolate, 12 to 22 mm. long, 7 to 12 mm. wide, 

 expanded in broad rounded auricles at the bases of the blades ; blades ovate- 

 triangular, acute or acuminate, 7 to 12 mm. long, and nearly as wide across 

 the semiangular or rounded dilations or auricles at the point of union to 

 the sporano-iophore, the dilation being inclined slightly downward; midiib 

 slender, quite inconspicuous; texture rather thin; sporangiophore broadly 

 cuneate, 5 to 10 mm. in length or nearly as long as the blade, rather wide 

 at the base, the axis narrow and broadening rapidly near the top, the lateral 

 lamiufe rather lax, Avith nearly straight margins, and often more or less 

 infolded; sporangia oblong, rounded or round-cylindrical, with rather dense 

 walls. 



The small scales described above are quite abundant in the shales from 

 Henry County. The essential, and at the same time striking, characters 

 are the nearly equal length of the blade and the sporangiophore and the 

 conspicuous, often auriculate, dilations at the base of the blade, which is 

 ovate-triangular. These characters clearly distinguish the species from 

 Lepidopliyllmn hastakim Lx. or L. ovatifolmm Lx., whose blade is similar 

 except for the absence of the basal dilation, or from L. hrevifolium Lx., 

 which, as seen in pi. Ixix, fig. 33, of the Coal Flora, or m}^ report on the 

 plants from the McAlester coal field, ^ has a long but narrow sporangiophore, 

 while the blade is shorter. The general aspect of the bracts is fairly well 

 seen in PI. LIX, Figs. 16, 2, and PI. LXIII, Fig. 6. 



' 19th Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv., pt. 3, 1899, p. 529, pi. Ixviii, figs. 15-18. 



