OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 19 



VIII. IDENTIFICATION OF ANTHOCEROS IN THE 



OKLAHOMA CRYPTOGAMIC FLORA 



M. M. Wickham, 1922 



From the Zoological Laboratory of the University of Oklahoma. 

 Contribution No. 11, Second Series. 



On April 23, 1921, an exploration party visited "Belle Starr" 

 Cave, in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, for the purpose of reconnoit- 

 ering the region, and making authentic records and cave collections. 

 Members of the party included Supt. C. E. Fair, of Hartshorne, 

 Supt. G. T. Masters, of Haileyville, Wallace Weeks of Hartshorne, 

 J. T. Ogle, Jr., of Enid, and the writer, who conducted the party. 



Passing up the tortuous defiles of a boulder-strewn ravine which 

 headed in a mountain some three or four miles northeast of 

 Hartshorne, we came at length to its eminence, where the mouth 

 of the cave overlooks the cascades into the gorge below. 



Just as the members of the party were clambering up the water- 

 carved shelves and precipitous gorge wall, the writer observed a 

 little green thallus clinging to the shadowed and upright cliff, 

 anchored at a seepage joint in the rocks, which proved to be 

 Anthoccros. as indicated by its "grass-blade-like" sporophytes. 



The thallus which covered no more space than the size of a 

 silver dollar, was carefully removed and packed with wet moss 

 in a carton, and transported to the biological laboratories of the 

 Southeastern State Teachers' College at Durant, where it was 

 vegetated under bell jars, and subjected to microscopical and pen 

 studies. 



Description. The thallus is of a deep rich green color, and 

 displays a dichotomized, frilled ribbon structure, like that of Mar- 

 cJiantia. Toward the distal bifuractions, and just back of the apical 

 cells and growing centers, rise the erect and "grass-blade-like" 

 sporophytes which are cleft and shed their maturing spores in suc- 

 cession as the stalk elongates, and the cleft descends along the 

 shaft. 



Cave Records. The cave turned out to be a hoax. We 

 clambered up the walls and went in on hands and knees only to 

 find that it was a cryptic bench in the recesses of the cliff originally 

 carved by the stream when at that level, and subsequently enlarged 

 by the artifices of outlaws, who had found in its solitude and 

 obscurity, a stronghold in depredations of territorial days, and 

 which, in this instance, centered around the famous female out- 

 law, "Belle Starr," who lived and operated in these regions with 

 a band of male conspirators. 



The only relics found in the cave were bones of birds and 



