49 



Its popular names arc Sanfoin, cock's-hcad, hen's-hill. Other 

 botanical najncs hy which this ])lant is sometimes known are 

 Onobrychis viciaefolia and (). saliva Lam. 



Jonx K. Small, 



OpHIOGLOSSUM HASTATIFORMl', CkL., Xf)T 

 AN Ol'IIlOGI-OSSUM 



It is with sincere regret that I am constrained t(j call attention 

 to a note in the January-February number of Torreya by my 

 friend Professor Cockerell entitled "A Genuine Fossil Ophio- 

 glossum,"* and to point out that the fossil in question is not 

 only not an Ophioglossum but not even a new species of fern. 



My especial interest in the question comes about in the fol- 

 lowing manner: Mr. N. H. Brown of Landor, Wyoming, has been 

 cooperating with me for the past two years in collecting fossil 

 plants from the Wind River Basin in that state. Last summer 

 he discovered two specimens of this alleged Ophioglossum, and, 

 under the impression that they were insect remains he forwarded 

 them to a friend in Colorado, from whom they reached the hands 

 of Professor Cockerell, and the cited paper in Torreya was the 

 result. 



When Mr. Brown learned this he was stimulated to renewed 

 search at the Tipperary locality, and a few weeks ago he sent me 

 about a dozen specimens of this plant, some of which are in an 

 excellent state of preservation. The supposed Ophioglossum is 

 none other than Danaea coloradensis Knowlton,t the type of 

 which came from the Green River oil shale, about 40 miles south- 

 west of Meeker, Colorado. 



The described spike is not a spike, nor is it hastate in form, 

 and the sporangia are clearly synangia, as their form should have 

 suggested. I have compared the Wind River specimens with 

 Knowlton's type from the Green River, and both he and I agree 

 that the two occurrences represent the same species, and that it 

 is not an Ophioglossum, and this is corroborated by Mr. W. R. 

 Maxon, our well-known authority on ferns, who most emphatic- 

 ally supports its reference to the genus Danaea. 



* Cockerell, T. D. A., Torreya, 24: lo-ii. 1924. 



t Knowlton, F. H., U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 131: 150, pi. 36, fig. 4, 

 1923. 



