272 FLORA OF LOWEE COAL MEASUEES OF MISSOURL 



like enlarged subrhomboidal, slightly oblique fleshy leaf bases. The aspect 

 of the branches is somewhat like TricJiopitys. The male element is gener- 

 ated in small cones in the axils of the leaves, while the female organs are, 

 according to Renault,^ ovules or seeds arranged in considerable numbers 

 along the very oblique linear basal portion of the leaf The leaves bearing 

 the seeds fork but once. Generally the leaves, which vary greatly in length, 

 adhere to the branche;^ until the latter are quite large. The leaf bases are 

 suggestive of Lepidodenclron, but lack the lateral traces in the leaf scar and 

 the appendages, though they are carinate. The scars are described^ as a 

 little above the middle of the cushions, oval, and marked in the center by 

 a small depression corresponding to the single vascular bundle. 



Dicrano2)hyllum should, perhaps, together with TricJiojntys, Ginkgophyllum, 

 Saport(Ba, and Wliittleseya be associated with the Salisburiece in the Giiik- 

 goales, to which, among living plants, it appears to be most closely related. 



DlCRANOPHYLLUM? Sp. 



PI. LXXIII, Fig. 1; PI. XLI, Fig. 10. 



Among the specimens collected by Dr. Britts from Hobbs's coal mine 

 is a fragment of shale, on one side of which is a forked branch, each of the 

 slightly unequal divisions being at an angle of about 45°, between 10 

 and 14 cm. long, very thick in proportion to the length, and clothed rather 

 densely with narrow dichotomous leaves. The back side of the thin frag- 

 ment of shale contains a robust twig of the same character, about 15 cm 

 long and, like the others, thickly clothed with leaves. This twig lies in 

 the same direction as that on the other side, and at the edge of the shale 

 where the branches on both sides pass downward off the rock fragment the 

 broken ends are inclined toward each other and are less than 5 mm. distant. 

 It is probable, therefore, that both belong to a common parent branch. 

 Unfortunately this example is not adapted to photography, while the 

 macerated aspect of the whole specimen and the commingled ramose 

 leaves, passing on all sides into the matrix, render its delineation without 

 idealization most difficult. The leaves are very oblique and appear to 

 overlap at the decurrent bases. They are generally, as seen in the detail, 

 PI. XLI, Fig. 10, slightly rigid, though often forked but a short distance 



'Fl. foss. basain liouiU. Commentry, pt. 2, p. 62S. 



'Renault, Fl. foss. bassin houill. et perm. d'Aiitiiu et d'fipiuac, pt. 2, 1896, p. 373. 



