418 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TEREITOEIES, 



This table enumerates three hundred and ten species ; that of the 

 former report, established from the species published formerly by myself 

 from the Eocene of Mississippi and Tennessee, later, from the speci- 

 mens which Dr. Leconte had obtained in exploring the Lignitic of 

 Colorado and New Mexico, and also with the species described by Dr. 

 Newberry from Fort Union, &c., had only one hundred and eighty 

 species. The addition to the flora of the North American Tertiary 

 formations amounts, therefore, to more than one hundred species. Of 

 these, sixty-one are new forms, and forty-two had not as yet been recog- 

 nized in our Tertiary flora, though published from other countries. The 

 large number of new species is explained in considering the age of 

 the formation where most of them have been obtained; that is, in 

 strata which pertain to the Lower Eocene at Golden and at Black 

 Butte. The flora of this formation is as yet little known to European 

 paleontologists. 



Considered merely in a botanical point of view, a number of these 

 new species of ours are of marked interest. In the class of the Lichens 

 one species, Opegrapha antiqua, is the first of this family which has been 

 found as yet in the old Tertiary formation. Eight species of Lichens 

 have been mentioned by Goppert as recognized in the amber, and three 

 upon the bark of Lignitic wood of the Upper Tertiary of Germany, but 

 none of them have been described, apparently on account of the in- 

 sufficiency of specific characters. These are, however, recognizable in the 

 Black Butte species. This discovery, together with that of two species 

 of Spheria and one of Sclerotium m the same Eocene formation, proves 

 that the scarcity of fossil cryptogamous plants of a lower order does not 

 indicate the absence of these vegetables at the former epochs, but is 

 due to the maceration which soon destroys the soft cellular tissue of 

 these plants. In the ferns, the list reports from South Park one species 

 of Ophioglossv/in^ a fine genus which was as yet known, in a fossil state, 

 by a single specie^ from the Upper Tertiary of Italy. In the Conifers 

 we have a new Sequoia, whose relation to Sequoia gigantea, the Cali- 

 fornia big tree, is, by its leaves at least, more intimate than that of any 

 fossil species of this genus ; a Thuya which claims our T. occidentalis, 

 not as a relative, but rather as a mere variety ; then an Ahies, which 

 comes to our Ahies Canadensis in about the same degree of affinity. 

 These three species belong to the Green Eiver or Upper Tertiary forma- 

 tion. From the Lower Eocene we have two species of the same genus 

 AMeSj whose characters are at variance with those of any species of Coni- 

 fers known as yet, either living or fossil. One species of Salisburia, S. 

 polymorplia, already- known from specimens of Vancouver Island, merits 

 also to be remarked among the Tertiary Coniferous species as positively 

 fixing the Eocene age of the Lignitic of that island. In the Glumacece 

 the Lower Eocene has a fine species of Carex, G. BertJioudi, found with 

 its seeds; in the Palms, new species of Sahal and Flahellaria', in the 

 Spadiciflorce two stems, CauUnites, with their fruits, all from Golden and 

 Black Butte. Higher still in the vegetable series we note a splendid 

 Myrica, M. Torreyi, with its seeds; the bracts of Betula Stevensoni; a 

 peculiar form of oak, Quercus platania, Heer, with a variety distinct 

 enough to be considered as a species ; a number of new species of Fieus, 

 one represented with leaves, branches, and fruits; a Coccoloba, three 

 new forms of Vihur7ium, one of them exposing by its numerous leaves 

 and its fructifications the characters of three species of our present flora; 

 leaves of Cissus and Vitis, of Asimina, Domheyopsis, Sapindus, Rliamnus, 

 Cassia, «S:c., all represented by numerous and well-preserved specimens. 

 With the leaves some still more remarkable fruits, Carpolites, whose 



