

TORREYA 



Vol. 27 No. 2 



March-April, 1927 



NEW PLANT RECORDS FROM THE PLEISTOCENE 



Edward W. Berry 



The following notes refer to determinations of miscellaneous 

 plants identified from small collections sent me at various times 

 during the past few years, and coming from scattered localities 

 in the southeastern United States. It is desirable to place these 

 on record for the benefit of students of the life of the Pleistocene, 

 and of the distribution of recent plants. 



Cornfield Harbor, Maryland 



This historic locality has long been known for its Pleistocene 

 molluscan remains. It is in southern St. Mary's County, and 

 has furnished a considerable marine fauna.* The general strati- 

 graphic relations are dark clays resting unconformably on the 

 Miocene, becoming more sandy and oyster bearing upward, and 

 overlain by non-fossiliferous sands, the whole belonging to the 

 Talbot formation of the Pleistocene. 



In 1909 Mr. James Hall of Cornfield Harbor sent me part of a 

 log from the lower part of the dark shell bearing clay. The 

 specimen is 52 inches long and 7 inches in diameter, and is clearly 

 drift wood, since it is extensively Teredo bored. I am indebted to 

 Dr. R. Thiessen of the Bureau of Mines for cutting and examin- 

 ing sections for me. 



The log obviously belongs to Juniperus. The preservation is 

 not perfect and in some of the anatomical features the structure 

 departs from that characteristic of our widespread eastern 

 Juniperus virginiana Linn6, and resembles the western Juniperus 

 occidentalis Hooker. It can hardly represent the latter species, 

 and probably represents the former, although there is a possibility 

 that it might represent the northern Holarctic Juniperus commu- 

 nis Linn^, which has been recordedf recently from New York. 



* Described in Maryland Geol. Survey Pleistocene, 1916. 

 t Hollick, A., Amer. Mus. Novitates 213, 1926. 



