346 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



PEOTEACE^. 



LomatiaH Saportanea. 



Todea ? Saportanea, Lesqx., Cret. Flora, p. 48, PI. XXIX, figs. 1-4 ; 

 PI. VI, fig. 2 (enlarged). 



Leaves coriaceous, pinnately laciniate; divisions entire, narrowly lan- 

 ceolate, pointed, connected by the decurring base, which forms a more or less 

 broad and nerved icing to the rachis ; primary veins thick, ascending to the 

 point ; secondary veins distinct, at an acute angle of divergence, close, par- 

 allel, curving up in passing to the borders and following them in simple fes- 

 toons; ar eolation mixed by tertiary veinlets and their branches in various 

 angles of divergence. 



The fine specimens figured in the Cret. Flora, as quoted above, repre- 

 sent the essential characters of the leaves ; the branches parallel and 

 distichous 1 ? along the primary stems, a disposition similar to that of 

 the fronds of a number of species of large ferns by parallel open pinnae. 

 The point or upper part of three of these dissected parallel leaves is 

 represented in fig. 1 ; this division is by more or less distant segraeuts, 

 which, opposite or alternate, are of various size, narrowly lanceolate 

 pointed, decurrent at the base, and thus connected by a wing along the 

 rachis. As seen at the base of the segments of the middle leaflet of 

 fig. 1, the wing along the borders is nerved like the divisions or leaflets. 

 The middle vein of these segments is thick; the secondary veins close, 

 parallel, turned up in passing to the borders, simple, but joined in vari- 

 ous directions by oblique nervilles, forming a mixed, angular, square, 

 or polygonal areolation. The nervation and areolation were exactly 

 copied for fig. 2 of PI. VI of this memoir, but the wood-cut does not 

 expose it in its details. Some of the specimens show the upper part of 

 three parallel leaves whose tops are on a right line and more exactly 

 like the upper pinnae of a fern than the specimen figured in the Cret. 

 Flora. 



My first opinion in regard to the relation of these remarkably fine 

 vegetable remains was that they represented some kind of an old ex- 

 tinct type of Filices. I even supposed that, considering the peculiar 

 disposition of the leaflets and their nervation, we had here something 

 like a transient form between the ferns and plants of a higher order. The 

 sections of the leaves are similar to those of some species of fossil ferns, 

 Stenopteris desmomera, Sap.,* for example, which, from the remarks of the 

 author, is without relation to any living fern; also like the fragment 

 described by Debey and Ettinghausenf under the generic name of Mon- 

 heimia, which not only have a similar division of leaves or pinnae, but, 

 as seen in fig. 6, a nervation of an analogous character, the numerous 

 parallel secondary veins curving up along the borders, some of them 

 united by oblique veinlets. A mere sketch of one of my specimens sent 

 to Count Saporta gave him the same impression in regard to its refer- 

 ence to ferns. But the areolation was not represented upon it, and the 

 characters of the areolation especially remove the species to another 

 order of vegetables, the Proteacew. Indeed species of Lomatia have the 

 leaves pinnately laciniate, with the divisions alternate, decurring along 

 the middle nerve or rachis, and a nervatiou and areolation somewhat com- 

 parable to those of the fossil species. I have therefore abandoned the 

 first reference, and, following the opinion of the celebrated author from 



* Plantes fossiles des lits de poissons de Cerin, by Count Saporta, p. 22, PI. XIV. 

 t Urweltlicben Acrobryen, p. 33, PI. IV. figs. 1-10. 



