3806 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
in texture, slightly falcate, linear-lanceolate, narrowing to a subacute 
tip,and widening to their bases. They are slightly decurrent, with 
their bases overlapping one another. There is a slender but distinct 
midnerve. These leaves are strikingly like those of P. Braunii, given 
by Saporta in his Flore Jurassique, Pal. Frangaise, Vol. III, pl. 
Ixviii, figs. 2,3. There is little doubt that the plant is that species. 
Pl. XLIV, Fig. 2, represents an ultimate leafy twig, with leaves of 
the largest size, and Pl. XLV, Fig. 1, shows a portion of a stem of 
largest size, which still retains remains of leaves. These are pressed 
close to the stem and their shape is disguised. On his field labels, on 
some specimens, Emmons has written Voltzia acutifolia Brongn. No 
plant of this name is mentioned in American Geology, Pt. V1, and he 
probably changed it. The specimens so marked are Palissya Braunii 
(P. sphenolepis), with leaves somewhat shorter and smaller than the 
normal ones. 
PauissyA DIFFUSA (Emmons) Fontaine.' 
Pl. XLV, Figs. 2, 3. 
To judge from the large number of specimens in Emmons’s collec- 
tion, the most abundant conifer in the North Carolina beds is one with 
minute leaves that he in American Geology, Pt. VI, p. 105, pl. iii, fig. 
2, describes as Walchia diffusus. It is the same as the plant that he 
describes as Walchia gracile in the same work, p. 108, fig. 75. In 
Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, Vol. VI, pp. 106,107, discussing Walchia 
diffusus, and aided only by Emmons’s figure, I regarded this plant as 
probably a Palissya, suggesting that it be called P. diffusa. In the 
same monograph, p. 108, I gave the opinion that Emmons’s Walchia 
gracile is a small form of Chetrolepis Muensteri, as I then thought that 
Palissya brevifolia was that plant. A careful inspection of the fossils 
leads me to think that the Walchia gracile is a small form of the rather 
variable Palissya diffusa. This latter plant is of the same general 
type as P. Braunii and P. brevifolia, although it differs decidedly 
from them in some points. It is probable that the abundance of this 
plant in the fossils collected is, in part, due to the nature of the tissue. 
The leaves are thick and leather-like, so that they remain in the form 
of a dense shining film that may be peeled off like paper from the 
stone. They seem to have been very durable. Only fragments of 
penultimate twigs, carrying numerous ultimate twigs, were seen. I did 
not see the original of Emmons’s pl. iii, fig. 2, but one of the speci- 
mens seen, that given on Pl. XLV, Fig. 2, of this paper, is as large as 
that. Emmons’s fig. 2 gives the facies of the plant very well, and shows 
accurately the appearance of the leaves on the ultimate twigs, with 
their characteristic curvature away from the stems, but he does not 
1For synonymy, see supra, p. 250. 
