286 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
To judge from the number of specimens that Emmons obtained, which 
is quite large, this fern must have been one of the most common plants 
in the North Carolina beds. None of the pinnules seen equal in size 
those of the largest size in LZ. virginiensis. The plant, however, 
must have attained considerable size, for one of the penultimate 
rachises seen is 1cm. wide. This specimen, which is represented in 
Fig. 8, Pl. XX XVIII, shows pretty well the general character of the 
larger forms of the fossil. The ultimate rachises are always strong in 
the forms with largest pinnules, as is shown in Fig. 9, which represents 
an ultimate rachis that carries pinnules of the largest size seen. 
The pinnules are never large, as is shown by the figure. Like the Vir- 
ginia Lonchopteris, the leaf substance is thick and leathery, so that 
it masks the details of the nervation. This is the type of the genus, 
and it appears to be rather more closely reticulate than Emmons has 
represented it to be. The pinnules are generally oblong in shape 
and very obtuse at their tips. The smaller pinnules, however, such 
as are represented in Fig. 10, tend to be more acute. They are closely 
crowded together, but not imbricated as Emmons has represented 
them in his fig. 8. In the lower portion of the frond they are sepa- 
rate, but higher up become more and more united. 
Genus SAGENOPTERIS Presl. 
SaGENOPTERIS Emmons! Fontaine n. sp.’ 
PL. XXXIX, Figs. 1-3. 
Emmons, in his American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 104, pl. iv, fig. 10, 
describes a plant which he names Cyclopteris obscurus. In Mon. U.S. 
Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, p. 104, I identified this with Sagenopteris rhot- 
folia. An inspection of specimens of the plant makes it most probable 
that it is a different species. I did not see in the collection any speci- 
men that appears to be the original of Emmons’s figure, but there are 
several that plainly belong to the same plant. All the specimens are 
very imperfectly preserved. The most complete one is that represented 
in Pl. XXXIX, Fig. 1. The others are fragments of single leaves. 
One of the largest and the most perfect of them is represented in Fig. 3. 
The leaves are too poorly preserved to indicate with certainty what 
their size and exact shape were. They seem to have been of very thin 
texture and to have been grouped, after the fashion of Sagenopteris, 
at the summit of a common stem. Basal portions of two are shown 
in Fig. 7, which seem to be thus arranged. In shape they seem to have 
been oblong, widening toward their summits and narrowing to, their 
1In view of the doubts that Professor Fontaine expresses as to whether this is really the same as 
Emmons's Cyclopteris obscurus, and especially of the fact that the type specimen was not found at 
Williams College, I shall not treat it as the same plant by retaining Emmons’s name for it, but as a 
new species, leaving the question of identity as it stood before. L. F. W. 
