398 



named ^Sassafras (Araliopsis) mirahile (Cretaceous Flora), by the three - 

 lobate up}3er part of the leaves and by their nervation ; the borders either 

 entire, aud followed by camptodrome secondary veins, or, obscurely den- 

 tate and entered by craspedodrome ones, are also of the same type; the 

 base, however, refers them to Pterosper mites ^ they being- not only peltate, 

 but having" under the lateral veins strong vertical secondary ones, which 

 thin and pass to mere marginal veinlets, surrounding the base of the 

 midrib and filling the broad rounded auricle by their divisions. There 

 was place upon the plate for the smallest of the leaves only. We have 

 other specimens, more or less fragmentary, however, which bear remains 

 of leaves of this species at least one foot in diameter. The coarse nerva- 

 tion and areolation, the closely secondary veins, are, of the same charac- 

 ter as in Sassafras. ohtusiim, as figured in PI. XIII, tig. 1, of the Cretace- 

 ous Flora. 



29. Menispermites ovalis, S2J. nov. 



Leaf oblong, obtuse, entire, rounded to the base, three-nerved froui 

 the top of the petiole ; lateral veins ascending in a curve parallel to the 

 borders to near the top, where they anastomose with branches of the 

 midrib, bearing two strong branches at their base, aud higher up short 

 oblique parallel branches, curving and anastomosing in festoons along 

 the borders. 



This fine leaf resembles, by some of its characters, being, however, 

 much shorter, Daphogene Kanii, published by Professor Heer, from the 

 Miocene of Greenland, in Flora Arctica (vol. I, p. 112, PI. XIV, and 

 PI. XVI, fig. 1). Its general form and especially the nervation are the 

 same. The author is somewhat uncertain in regard to the relation of 

 this species. We have obtained a perfect specimen, with distinct nerva- 

 tion aud areolation of the leaves, described in the Cretaceous Flora 

 under the name of Menispermites ohtusiloba. It has been carefully figured 

 for the next annual report of Dr. F. V. Hayden. This leaf, much smaller 

 than those formerly figured in the Cretaceous Flora, has the characters of 

 nervation in exact concordance with those of this new species, and, 

 therefore, it appears judicious to place them both under the same generic 

 division. The texture of this leaf, which is finely preserved, is some- 

 what thick, subcoreaceous, and the nervation distinct, as \\e\l as the 

 areolation. 



ADDITIOX. 



Mr. William H. Holmes, returning from this year's expedition of the 

 geological survey under the direction of Dr. F. V. Hayden, (1S75), 

 has lately brought to me a number of specimens from Southwest Colo- 

 rado, in the vicinity of San Juan Kiver. They represent two horizons 

 of the Cretaceous, as far, at least, as conclusions can be obtained from 

 a small lot of specimens, which, unhappily, are ver^^ fragmentary. The 

 leaves of the lower stage, upon red, coarse, sandy shale, of the same 

 appearance and compound as are those of the Dakota group at some 

 exposition of the rocks, represent especially Magnolia alternans, Heer, 

 one of the common species of the Cretaceous of Nebraska and Kansas, 

 aud fragments of apparently two species of Oaks {Bryophyllum), which 

 cannot be determined and described, the borders of the leaves being 

 mostly destroyed aud the nervation undiscernible. From a higher sta- 

 tion of the same locality, a few specimens have, among undeterminable 

 fragments, the two following species, for which, as yet, I find no relative 

 form in the Cretaceous flora of the Dakota group, and none either in that 

 of the Lower Lignitic. 



