Maryland Geological Survey 411 



Genus CEDRUS Miller 

 [Gard. Diet, ed. iii, 1737] 



The modern cedars number three species of northern Africa, southern 

 Asia, the Himalayas, and the Orient. Evidence that the genus was 

 much more widespread in the past is furnished by a considerable amount 

 of fossil evidence. Cedars undoubted^ made their appearance at least 

 as far back as the Lower Cretaceous, no less than three species founded 

 upon cones occurring in the Albian of England, Belgium, and Prance. 

 These records are substantiated by the association of the cones in the 

 latter country with fossil wood showing structure and described as various 

 species of Cedroxylon by Fliche * and Lignier.^ Fossil wood is also 

 described by the former author from the somewhat older Barremian 

 deposits of France (Haute-Marne^), while Schenk and ISTathorst refer 

 two of Cramer's species of Pinites from the Upper Jurassic of Spitz- 

 bergen to Cedroxylon.* 



The genus has not been previously recorded from America. The 

 toxonomy of Mesozoic cones is in such a deplorably tangled state that 

 it is difficult or altogether impossible to infer the true affinities of a large 

 number of the various species of Pinites, Ahietites, Strohilites, Conites, 

 etc. 



Cedrus LEi!i (Fontaine) Berry 



Plate LXXYII, Figs. 4, 4a 



Cedar cone Bibbins, Johns Hopkins Univ. Circ, vol. xv, 1895, p. 19, fig. F. 

 Pinites Leei Fontaine, 1906, in Ward, Mon. U. S. Geo!. Survey, vol. xlviii, 

 1905, p. 570, pi. cxix, figs. 6, 7. 



Description. — Cone small (possibly unripe), 4 cm. long by 2 x 1.5 cm. 

 in diameter, considerably distorted by the movement of the enclosing 

 clay so that the scales on one side appear thin, while the reversed move- 

 ment gives those on the opposite side the appearance of being tipped by 



^Fliche, Etudes sur la Flore Fossile de I'Argonne, 1896, p. 134, pi. xv, figs. 

 1, 2. 



^ Lignier, Mem. Soc. Linn. Normandie, tome xxii, 1907, p. 263, pi. xviii, figs. 

 15-17; pi. xxi, fig. 66; pi. xxii, fig. 72; pi. xxiii, fig. 87. 



^ Fliche, Bull. Soc. Sci. Nancy, 1900, p. 16, pi. ii, fig. 1. 



*Nathorst, Kgl. Svensk. Vetensk.-Akad. Handl., Bd. xxx, 1897, p. 42. 



