280 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES. 
Subkingdom PTERIDOPHYTA (Ferns and Fern Allies). 
‘Class FILICALES. 
Family FILICES (Ferns). 
Genus SPHENOPTERIS Brongniart. 
SPHENOPTERIS EGYPTIACA Emmons. 
Pl. XX XVIII, Fig. 1. 
1857. Sphenopteris egyptiaca Emm.: American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 36, figs. 8 and 9 
on p. 37. 
1885. Acrostichites egyptiacus (Emm.) Font.: Older Mes. Fl. Virginia, Mon. U. S. 
Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 99, pl. xlviii, figs. 8, 8a. 
Emmons, in American Geology, Pt. VI, pp. 36-37, figs. 8 and 9, gives 
a description of a fine fern, which he names Sphenopteris egyptiaca. 
He says it is found only in the coal-bearing portions of the North 
Carolina Mesozoic. It is the finest of the few plants that this portion 
of the measures has yielded. Emmons’s fig. 8, so far as it goes, gives 
the character of the plant very well, but it gives only a portion of the 
imprint visible on the specimen in the collection, which is evidently 
the original of the figure. Fig. 8 of Emmons gives only parts of two 
ultimate pinne attached to a primary rachis on the right-hand side. 
The specimen shows much more of the plant. The facies of the ulti- 
mate pinne and of the pinnules is given very well in this figure, and 
fig. 9, which represents an enlarged pinnule, shows quite faithfully the 
details, so far as they can be made out. The impression of the plant 
on the stone is not very distinct. 
The original specimen shows a considerable portion of two primary 
pinne, both of which contain more of the plant than Emmons depicts. 
The primary pinna, a portion of which he figures, had its rachis orig- 
inally much larger than represented. There is shown on the right- 
hand side another ultimate pinna similar to those figured, going off as 
if it had been attached to the rachis prolonged above. Below the pin- 
nules figured, and on the same side, there are portions of three other 
ultimate pinne, which evidently were originally attached to the rachis 
prolonged below. Emmons’s figure shows, on the left-hand side, only 
the basal portions of two ultimate pinne that are without pinnules. 
But the specimen shows here two ultimate pinne with pinnules nearly 
as numerous and well preserved as those on the right-hand side. In 
addition there is found on the slab of stone, to the right of the pri- 
mary pinna above described, a second pinna of the same character, but 
with a considerably smaller rachis. This has its lower termination, 
