iNEW SPECIES UF POSSIL PLANTS FRON THE CRETA- 

 CEOUS FORMATIOiN OF THE DAKOTA GROUP. 



Since the publieatiou of the first part of the Contributions to the 

 Fossil Floras of the Western Territories, the paleontological explorations 

 contiDued in Kansas, especially by Messrs. H. C. Towner and Charles 

 Sternberg, have procured a number of fine specimens, representing new 

 species or varieties of forms as yet unsatisfactorily known, which afford 

 some important information in regard to the characters of the remarka- 

 ble vegetation of the Cretaceous period. As it has been done for the 

 plants of the Tertiary, it is appropriate to give now an abridged de- 

 scription of the new Cretaceous species, reserving for the next annual 

 report of Dr. F. Y. Hayden a revision of the species which have been 

 formerly published, and a more detailed description with figures of 

 the new ones added to the Cretaceous flora of the United States by 

 recent discoveries. 



1. Gleichenia Nordenskioldi, Heer. 



Frond slender, dichotomous, apparently bipiunate ; pinnae close to 

 each other, open, linear, parallel, with minute, free, oblong, or ovate- 

 obtuse pinnules, rounded at base, turned upward; secondary veins few, 

 three or four pairs, the lower forking, the upper simple. 



In the Greenland specimens, the fructifications are marked by two 

 large sori at the base of the pinnules, one on each side of the middle 

 nerve. The specimens from Kansas are sterile. 



2. Sequoia condita, sp. nov. 



Branches very slender, rigid, piunately divided ; branchlets oblique 

 or open, filiform, generally embedded in the stone, or leaving merely 

 deep impressions within or upon the matrix ; leaves narrowly elliptical 

 or oblong, acute, slightly narrowed to the base, closely appressed, dis- 

 tantly imbricated, alternate, and nerveless. Cone small, oval, obtuse ; 

 male catkin relatively large, ovate, obtuse. 



The remains of this species, which fill some specimens with their im- 

 pressions of branches, branchlets, and scarcely perceivable leaves, could 

 be, but for the ramification, considered as identical with those described 

 in the Cretaceous Flora as Glyptostrobus graeilUmus. The three cones, 

 found embedded upon the same specimen as the branches and the male 

 catkin, jjrove that this peculiar species is a Sequoia, though the leaves 

 are so small that the relation of their base to the branches or the 

 decurring border cannot be positively recognized. 



3. Sequoia fastigiata?, Sternb. 



Branches and branchlets erect, filiform, fastigiate; leaves loosely 

 imbricated, small, decurrentat the b.ise, lancaolate-acjoiinate, more or 

 less curved upward, nerved. 



There is of this species a small branch only. All the characters of 



