Maryland Geological Survey 503 



it difficult to give any good characters distinguishing them from ferns. 

 There is a general and strong resemblance between these plants and 

 some species of Ficus, and for this reason it seems best to place them 

 in a new genus, indicating by its name the apparent affinity with that 

 genus. It is quite possible that thes^ are ancestral forms of Ficus." 



The foregoing diagnosis remains correct except that it should be 

 pointed out that the slenderness of the secondaries is purely relative to 

 the midrib, and not actual, as they are for the most part especially 

 stout as may be seen from Fontaine's figures of these forms. 



There is one other venation character which should be mentioned 

 since it is of extreme importance in the writer's judgment as it gives 

 the only clue to the relationship of these forms, a matter of great interest, 

 since we are dealing with what have long supposed to be the most ancient 

 known angiosperms. This is the internal free ending of the veins 

 within the meshes. This type of venation, while present in various 

 angiosperms as for example in certain species of Ficus, Banksia, 

 Cocculus, etc., according to DeBary, is especially characteristic of netted- 

 veined ferns of the Drynaria type and occurs also in the genus Gnetum 

 among the Gnetales. Whether these features are anatomically accurate 

 and the vascular bundles in contradistinction to the veins actually end in 

 this way cannot be determined, but the relatively coarse ultimate venation 

 does show these features. 



The writer is inclined to think that both Ficophyllum and the allied 

 genera ProtecepJiyllum and Rogersia are not angiosperms but are related 

 either to ferns of the Drynaria type or to the Gnetales. In outline they are 

 closer to Gnetum-like forms although Ficophyllum serratum agrees 

 fairly well with the basal leaves of Drynaria. The fossils have been 

 carefully compared with a large amount of recent material and with 

 all of the described remains of fern genera like ClatJiropteris and Dictyo- 

 phyllum without arriving at any definite conclusions other than the 

 conviction that if the remains of Ficophyllum had happened to come 

 from Ehgetic instead of Cretaceous strata they would have been unhesi- 

 tatingly referred to the ferns. 



