356 OLDER MESOZOIO FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
CTENIS AURICULATA Fontaine. 
Pl. LVI, Figs. 1-3. 
1896. Ctenis auriculata Font.: Am. Jour. Sci., 4th Ser., Vol. II, p. 274. 
Only portions of leaflets were seen. The most complete specimen, 
given in Pl. LVIII, Fig. 2, shows a portion of the compound leaf, 
with the basal parts and attachment of two leaflets. The plant must 
have reached a large size, but the true dimensions can not be made out. 
Only the basal portions of the leaflets were seen, and in these portions 
they show some variation. The form represented in Fig. 1 has the 
least narrowing at base and the least auriculate form, having somewhat 
the shape of the bases of the leaflets of C. grandifolia. The bases 
of the leaflets in the form represented in Fig. 2 are considerably rounded 
off and narrowed at their insertion, so that they have a pronounced 
auriculate form. The nerves are quite different from those of C. 
grandifolia, but the general plan of anastomosis is similar, although 
more abundant. The nerves, near their attachment, are rather remote 
and straggling. They gooff at a large angle and are, near their bases, 
mostly single, but above branch more or less copiously. Those in the 
middle and upper sides of the lamina of the leaflet are less copiously 
branched, but those in the lower portion branch repeatedly in a flabel- 
late manner, curving outward and downward in the more auriculate 
leaves to fill the expanded base. This description applies only to the 
basal portions of the leaflets, for only these were seen. The nerves 
are very strong and cord-like, being considerably stronger than those 
of C. grandifolia. They anastomose by one of the branches of a fork- 
ing nerve coalescing with an adjacent nerve to form elongate meshes, 
after the general fashion seen in C. grandifolia, but there is no regu- 
larity in the intervals at which this takes place, and the union of nerves 
‘is more common. 
A considerable number of specimens of this plant are found at the 
locality ‘‘In the bed of a ravine that leads from the Banner mine,” 
etc. The specimens are not complete enough to show the full charac- 
ter of the plant, but they are enough so to indicate that it is quite 
different from C. grandifolia, and, indeed, from any hitherto-known 
species. The auriculate form of the bases of the leaflets reminds one 
of C. imbricata Font. of the Potomac formation, but there is hardly 
any other feature of resemblance except the existence of a reticulation 
of the Ctenis type. 
Fig. 3 gives a portion of a leaflet above the base and shows well the 
copious reticulation of that portion. 
