NEW Y#RK 

 BOTANICAL 



TORREYA 



Vol. 34 January-February, 1 *>.S4 Mo. 1 



A Tertiary Ephedra 



R. P. WODEHOUSE 



Ramis aphyllis, articulatis, geminatis oppositis ad articulos. 

 Internodiis striatis; iis ramulorum adaxialium quam eis abaxia- 

 lium brevioribus. 



The present specimen is a thin carbonaceous residue, rep- 

 resenting a curved section of stem. It consists of a single 

 node and part of each of the adjoining internodes, and from 

 the node arise two branchlets lying in the plane of curvature 

 of the main stem. The first internode of the branchlet on the 

 concave side is considerably shorter than that of the branch- 

 let on the convex side. A third exceedingly slender branchlet 

 lies above and to one side of the main part of the specimen, but 

 is not organically connected with it. 



The rock bearing the fossil was broken apart in such a way 

 that the specimen is split into halves. Fig. 1 is a photograph 

 of the more distinct half. 



OCCURRENCE: Miocene Florissant beds of Colorado. 

 Collected by K. Yreeland, 1901. Deposited in the museum of 

 the Xew York Botanical Garden. 



A similar species, Ephedra niidicaulis Saporta. has been 

 described from the Miocene flora of Aix-en-Provence (Saporta 

 1889), but it differs from the present specimen in having 

 scaly nodes. Ephedra johniana Goepp. and Berendt, in the 

 Tertiary flora of Bernstein, is described from a twig bearing 

 pistillate cones (Goeppert and Menge 1883). Consisting of dif- 

 ferent parts of the plant, a satisfactory comparison with the 

 present specimen is not possible, but it does not seem to be 

 the same species. Ephedra sotzkiana Ung. (Unger 1870), E. 

 mengeana Goepp. (Goeppert and Menge 1883) and Ephedrites 

 sotzkianus Ung. (Unger 1850, Heer 1885) bear little or no resem- 



1 



