20 FOSSIL FLORA OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 
The var. palustris, Chap., has leaves still more obtusely pointed than that 
of Fig. 1, the only one preserved nearly in its integrity. If not identical 
with the living species, the fossil one may be considered as its ancestor. 
Its analogy to fossil species is marked with P. Brauni, Heer, FI. Tert. 
Helv., p. 80, Pl. LXXXIX. Figs. 9, 10, of the Miocene of Ciningen. 
Habitat. — Table Mountain, California. Voy’s Collection. 
DISCANTHEA. 
ARALIA, L. 
Aralia Whitneyi, sp. nov. 
Pi. V. Fig. 1. 
Leaves of very large size, subcoriaceous, surface polished, fan-like in outline, broadly 
cuneate or subtruncate to a thick, apparently short petiole ; three palmately nerved, 
and seven-lobed by subdivision of the lateral nerves ; lobes entire, cut down to about 
one third of the lamina, broadly lanceolate-acuminate ; secondary nervation camp- 
todrome. 
The figure represents one of the smallest and better preserved leaves of 
this species, from its numerous specimens in the collection. It is twenty 
centimeters broad, and eighteen long from the top of the pétiole. Another 
of these leaves, well preserved also, is twenty-seven centimeters long, 
and fragments less complete indicate a size of thirty-six centimeters wide, 
and thirty centimeters broad for the leaves which they represent. The 
shape or general outline of the leaves is very graceful. They are like 
large open fans cut around in seven nearly equal lobes, all joined by ob- 
tuse sinuses, and separating in the same degree, according to the angle 
of divergence of 20° to 25° of the primary nerves, which run straight to 
the point of the lobes. The primary nerves are properly in three; but 
the lateral ones fork twice at a short distance from the base, and thus 
compose the seven-lobed divisions of the leaves. These primary veins 
and their branches are thick; the secondary ones, on the contrary, origi- 
nating a little lower than the base of the lobes, are thin, but distinct, 
close, parallel, curving in passing up to the borders, camptodrome; the 
nervilles are distinct, and in right angle to the nerves, those of the lower 
part turned up from the primary nerves, and arched in the middle. The 
areolation is obsolete. 
