REPORT OF THE STATE PALEONTOLOGIST 190l 599 



sible; but, even with the most liberal interpretation of Gop- 

 pert's diagnosis, it is doubtful whether our plant is admissible 

 to the same species as the latter's types, while, as will presently 

 be seen, its generic characters are entirely distinct from those 

 of the badly confused and questionable genus Haliserites. 



The genus Haliserites was established in 1833 by Stern- 

 berg 1 for algae with flat, membranaceous, costate fronds, with 

 capsular sporangia grouped beside the costae in the lamina 

 of the frond. The original (solitary) species proposed is 

 Haliserites reichii 2 from the Cenomanian greensand 

 at Niederschona in Saxony. This, the type of the genus, was 

 referred by Bronn, 3 in 1838, to the ferns and accordingly de- 

 scribed asOhiropteris reichii (Stb.) on account of its 

 superficial characters, in agreement with that genus of ferns, 

 and its association with a dicotyledonous land flora. Sehimper 4 

 assigned the species to the recent genus Delesseria, and Fuchs 

 regarded it as a true alga, comparable to Fucus vesi- 

 cular i s ; but Rothpletz 5 , after examining the original speci- 

 men concludes that its association with a land flora is against 

 its algoid nature, and that, though no lateral nerves are dis- 

 cernible, it would perhaps be better to inscribe the plant as 

 Phyllites reichii. Still later, Newberry in his work on 

 the plants from the Amboy clays of New Jersey 6 describes a 

 type which he regarded as no doubt generically identical with 

 Sternberg's Haliserites reichii, but for which, since 

 it can hardly have been an alga, he proposes the genus Fon- 

 tainea. It was considered by Newberry as closely related 



1 Versuch einer geognostisch-botanisclien Darstellung der Flora der Vor- 

 welt. v. 2, f asc. 5 and 6, p. 34. 



2 Op. cit. p. 34, pi. 24, fig. 7. " Frons stipitata, dichotime bipinnatim 

 ramosa, fere pedata, ramis ramulisque costatis, fere dimidiatis, latere 

 nempe exteriore deficiente, ramulis oblongis, obtusis, subfalcatis, costis 

 stipiteque teretibus." 



3 Lethaea Geognostica. 2: 576, pi. 28, fig. 1. 

 4 Traite Paleont. Veg. 1:178. 



5 Zeitschr. d. deutsch. geol. Gesell. 1896. 48: 904. 



6 U. S. geol. sur. Monogr. 1895. 26:95. 



