GYMEOSPEKMS— CORDAITALES— EHABDOCARPOS. 269 



Goeppert and Berger^ more properly than to Carpolites multistriatus Presl.- 

 Tlie former type, setting aside the question of the essential Trigonocarpal 

 character, appears to be longer, more distinctly elliptical, pointed, with the 

 ribs much more numerous and finer. The latter is oval, with wider, broadly 

 convex ribs, apparently about fifteen or eighteen in number. Some of the 

 specimens referred to the former are undoubtedly close to Bhahdocarpos 

 apiculahis and B. carinatus of Newberry, as Kidston^ has pointed out. 

 Others, chiefly from the Pottsville series, have nutlets resembling the last- 

 named form, but the envelopes appear to have been long, extending some 

 distance above the apex of the nut, with broad truncate-rounded apex and 

 striated, not ribbed, surface. On the other hand, a portion of the material 

 labeled as well as that figured* by Professor Lesquereux as Trigonocarpus 

 Schultzianus, appears to me to stand closer to some of the forms illustrated 

 by Fiedler^ than to the original example described by Goeppert and Berger, 

 or the specimens figured by Zeiller." It is more than possible that the incom- 

 patibihties in the identification of these two species in our native collections 

 are very largely due to the varied conceptions of those species portrayed by 

 the European authors. The examination, as I have suggested above, of the 

 collections" to which I have had access, seems to show that most of our speci- 

 mens determined as Bliabdocarpos mtdtistriatus are really much nearer the 

 Trigonocarpmi SclmUdamim, although in the flattened specimens the main tri- 

 costate feature is often obliterated. On the other hand, some of the examples 

 labeled as Trigonocarpum Scliidtzianum often lack all traces of the tricostate 

 character and are probably nearer the Bliabdocarpos multistriatus, while still 

 others approach the Bliabdocarpos Jacksonensis of Lesquereux.'' The material 

 from Missouri, although lacking a distinct Trigonocarpoid aspect, belongs 

 among the large number of specimens which, as it seems to me, would 

 better be placed under Trigonocarpum Sclmltzianum. However, for the pres- 

 ent I follow the identification by Professor Lesquereux, leaving the final 

 reference of this fruit to a revision of this entire group of species. 

 Localittj.— Owen's coal mine, U. S. Nat. Mus., 6202. 



1 berger, De fruct. et serain. ex form, litbanthr., 1848, p. 20, jjI. ii, figs. 22, 23. 



"-In Sternberg: Versuch, vol. ii, appendix, 1838, p. 208, pi. xxxix, fig. 12. 



3 Cat. Pal. PI. Brit. Mus., 1886, p. 213. 



"Coal Flora, vol. iii, p. 819, pi. ex, figs. 63-65. 



^Die foss. Fruchte d. Steink.-Form., 1857, p. 283, pi. xxiv, figs. 18-20; pi. xxvi, figs. 25-26. 



6F1. foss. bassin houill. Valenciennes, p. 651, plate xciv, figs. 15-16. 



'Eept. Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. ii, 1860, p. 461, pi. xlvi, fig. 4. 



