Pine and cherry from the Calvert Miocene 



Edward W. Berry 



The presence of land plants in the marine sediments of the 

 Middle Atlantic States Miocene is an infrequent occurrence and 

 is for the most part confined to a very limited number of locali- 

 ties in the near shore deposits of the Calvert formation. 



In 1916 twenty-six species of plants were enumerated:^ 16 

 from Richmond, Virginia, and 17 from two localities in the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, 7 being common to the two regions. This 

 flora included a Salvinia, 2 conifers and 23 dicotyledons. Legu- 

 minous leaflets and oak leaves predominate among the last and 

 cypress was the most common form at Richmond. 



These plants indicated a middle Miocene age, probably to 

 be correlated with the Tortonian stage of Europe. Ecologically 

 the Richmond forms appeared to indicate a low coast lined with 

 cypress swamps and an inconsiderable run-off, and the District 

 of Columxbia forms indicated that they grew among coastal 

 dunes. 



Despite the fact that the fossiliferous Miocene of tidewater 

 Maryland and Virginia has attracted the attention of geologists 

 for more than 2 centuries and is visited annually by scores of 

 students interested in collecting shells, the bones of marine 

 mammals and other sea life preserved in these Miocene sedi- 

 ments, no traces of land plants have, so far as I know, been 

 recorded from the classic outcrops such as those of the Calvert 

 Cliffs along the western shore of Chesapeake Bay or those along 

 Potomac River until the summer of 1933, when two specimens of 

 a new species of walnut were discovered — one in Zone 11 at a 

 locality 1| miles south of Plum Point in the Calvert Cliffs, and 

 the second at Richmond, Virginia.- 



During the summer of 1935 a fairly well preserved pine cone 

 was collected from Zone 11 at a point 1.7 miles south of Plum 

 Point, and a stone of a Prunus was collected from the Nomini 



1 Berry, Edward W. The physical conditions indicated by the Flora of 

 the Calvert formation. U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 98, pp. 61-73, pis. 11, 

 12, 1916. 



2 A Walnut from the Chesapeake Miocene. Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci., vol. 

 24, pp. 227-229, 1934. 



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