460 Systematic Paleontology 



of Portugal are referred by Saporta to the genera Menispermites and 

 Aristolo cilia. 



POPULOPHYLLUM MINUTUM Ward 



Plate LXXXI, Fig. 2 



PopulopJiyllum minutum Ward, 1906, in Fontaine, Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, 

 vol. xlviii, 1905, pp. 499, 532, pi. cvii, fig. 9; pi. cviii, fig. 11. 



Description. — Leaf nearly orbicular in outline; small in size, being 

 about 1.5 cm. in length and width. Margin coarsely dentate, becoming 

 entire toward the base which is not at all cordate or auriculate, but 

 rounded truncate or cuneate. Venation palmate; primaries three to 

 five in number from the summit of the 'petiole, the midrib being much 

 the strongest. The lateral primaries are fine in calibre, they fork and 

 anastomose some distance from the margin sending very delicate 

 branches into the broad blunt teeth. 



As Professor Ward remarks (loc. cit.), this leaf is suggestive of the 

 Vitaceffi and recalls Cissites crispus Velen. from the Bohemian Cenoma- 

 nian and the forms which Newberry described under the same name from 

 the New Jersey Earitan. It is abundantly distinct from all of these, 

 however, and were the present author describing it de novo, it would be 

 referred to Populus. As the case stands it may remain in Populopliyllum 

 which sufiiciently indicates its probable affinity and does not necessitate 

 a change in nomenclature. 



More representative specimens of this species occur on the southern 

 bank of the Potomac at Mt. Vernon, the fragments from Ft. Foote 

 being not entirely satisfactory, suggesting the possibility that they might 

 be small and somewhat anomalous leaves of Celastropliyllum acutidens 

 Font., which is so abundant at this locality. They appear, however, to 

 be identical with the Mt. Vernon material. 



Entirely characteristic leaves of this species occur in the Maryland 

 Patapsco deposits near Wellhams. These are identical in appearance 

 with those from Mt. Vernon, Virginia, except for a somewhat narrowed 

 base coupled with which character the outer lateral primaries have 

 mi^ated upward slightly and become basal secondaries. 



