THE FLORA. 



105 



probably only a piece of bark, and the other 

 (from the true Laramie at Golden, Colo.) is 

 based on a portion of an underground stem 

 of an Equisetum with characters so poorly 

 defined that the advisability of retaining it 

 is open to question. It is not to be doubted 

 that there are Equisetum stems in the "Hell 

 Creek beds," but the propriety of identifying 

 them with Equisetum perlaevigatum may Well 

 be questioned. Rhamnus salicifolius is an- 

 other of the forms identified by Hollick in 

 the "Hell Creek beds." This, together with 

 Myrica torreyi, is well known as a species en- 

 joying a wide vertical range. Ficus plani- 

 costata is also a species of considerable ver- 

 tical range. It is extremely rare in the Lance 

 formation, and its identification is not be- 

 yond question. The identification of Cinna- 

 momum affine rests on its doubtful presence in 

 the Kingsbury conglomerate, east of the Big 

 Horn Mountains, Wyo., and Quercus viburni- 

 folia was identified with question at Forsyth, 

 Mont. 



In a paper published in 1909 15 I listed 11 

 species that were at that time believed to be 

 common to the Laramie and Lance forma- 

 tions. The species additional to those in the 

 above list are Ficus trinervis, Flabellaria 

 eocenica, Sabalites grayanus, and Juglans 

 rugosa. According to present understanding 

 neither Ficus trinervis nor Juglans rugosa is 

 known in the Laramie of the Denver Basin. 

 The two palms may be the same as the Mon- 

 tana and Laramie form known as Sabal 

 montana, but there is usually difficulty in cer- 

 tainly identifying remains of palms. 



From this brief account it appears that 

 there are not now known to be more than 

 four or five species of plants that are common 

 to the Laramie and Lance, and when it is 

 recalled that there is about the same number 

 of species in the two floras, it is seen that the 

 relationship between these floras is not a| 

 strong one. \ 



RELATIONS TO THE UPPERMOST CRETACEOUS 

 OP THE ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN. 



In the major portion of the Atlantic Coastal 

 Plain the uppermost Cretaceous is believed to 



i» Knowlton, F. H., Stratigraphie relations and paleontology of the 

 "Hell Cree'c beds," " Ceratops beds," and equivalents, and their refer- 

 ence to the Fort Union formation: Washington Acad. Sci. Proc, vol. 

 ' 11, p. 222, 1909. 



be either lower in position than the Laramie, 

 or where the section is more nearly com- 

 plete — as in the northern portion — it is a 

 marine deposit and not plant-bearing. 



RELATIONS TO THE PATOOT SERIES OF 

 GREENLAND. 



The Cretaceous system is very considerably 

 developed in Greenland, reaching a thickness 

 of approximately 4,000 feet. The area of 

 exposure includes Disco Island and the Nug- 

 suak Peninsula and is a belt about 75 miles 

 wide along the deeply indented coast line 

 from latitude 69° 15' to 72° 15' N. The beds 

 at many places are very fossiliferous and haye 

 yielded altogether more than 350 species of 

 plants, which were, in the main, elaborated 

 by Oswald Heer in his well-known "Flora 

 fossilis arctica," comprising seven quarto 

 volumes, published in 1868 to 1883. On the 

 basis of the plants, Heer divided the Cre- 

 taceous into three series. A lower division, 

 called the Kome series, with a flora of 88 

 species, was correlated with the Urgonian of 

 Europe; a middle division, the Atane series, 

 with 177 species of plants, was correlated 

 with the Cenomanian; and an upper division, 

 the Patoot series, with a flora of 123 species, 

 was correlated with the European Senonian 

 and the Fox Hills of the United States. Above 

 this in other parts of the Arctic region is a con- 

 siderable thickness of Tertiary beds, also with 

 an abundant flora, which constitute the so- 

 called Arctic Miocene, now very generally re- 

 ferred to the Eocene. 



The Atane and Patoot series have a com- 

 bined thickness of at least 1,300 feet, and 

 probably considerably more. There is no 

 sharp line of demarcation between them, the 

 boundary having been drawn by Heer purely 

 on paleoidtologic grounds. 



Although Heer definitely correlated the 

 Patoot series with the Senonian, White and 

 Schuchert, 16 who visited the region in 1897, 

 expressed the view that there was a transition 

 without sedimentary break into the overlying 

 Tertiary. These writers also stated that the 

 Patoot series contains "many-plants common to 

 the upper part of the Amboy clays, with 

 others allied more closely to the higher Cre- 

 taceous flora, such as that of the Laramie." 



u White, David, and Schuchert, Charles, Cretaceous series of the 

 west coast of Greenland: Geol. Soc. America Bull., vol. 9, p. 367, 1898. 



