322 Scientific Intelligence. 



describes as Cycadeoidea nigra a remarkably well preserved and 

 handsome new species of cycadean trunk of supposed Jurassic 

 age from the vicinity of Boulder, Colorado. This trunk is of 

 more particular interest as extending the geographical range of 

 the genus Cycadeoidea one step further west. While the dis- 

 tinctness of the present species is quite certain, it might be noted 

 that externally it bears a strong resemblance to Cycadeoidea 

 Uhleri from the Potomac formation of Maryland, the latter being 

 in all probability a close specific, or even varietal relative. 

 There is likewise a close resemblance to Cycadeoidea (Raumeria) 

 Masseiana Capellini, from the scaly clays of Italy. 



If in the present invaluable contribution there is anything 

 open to criticism, it is perhaps the absence, in a work otherwise so 

 profusely illustrated, of maps and sections of the more import- 

 ant localities and areas dealt with, such for instance as appear 

 in the present author's contributions on the lower Cretaceous of 

 the Black Hills in the XlXth Annual Report of the IT. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey. g. r. w. 



2. La Flore Wealdienne de Bernissart ; par A. C. Seward. 

 Memoires du Musee Royal d'Histoire ISTaturelle de Belgique, Vol. 

 i, 1900. — The plants described in this memoir are the unfortu- 

 nately somewhat fragmentary remains of the Flora occurring in 

 the Wealden beds of Bernissart near the French frontier between 

 Mons and Tournay, famous for the discovery in 1877 of numer- 

 ous remarkably preserved Iguanodon skeletons. 



The writer's conclusions are translated in part as follows : 

 The plants of Bernissart are sufficient to demonstrate a closer 

 resemblance to the Wealden facies than to any other Mesozoic 

 type of vegetation. 



I have elsewhere remarked that from the botanical point of 

 view there exists an intimate resemblance between the Wealden 

 type of Flora wherever well developed, as in England and 

 Northern Germany, and the Flora of the inferior Oolite. Thei-e 

 is not in fact a well marked break in the palaeobotanical contin- 

 uity between the Jurassic and Wealden Floras of itself justify- 

 ing the term Wealden as applied to plant beds such as those of 

 Hastings on the coast of Sussex ; comprised in the lower Weal- 

 den by the English geologists. 



The composition of the flora of Bernissart is interesting for 

 the marked preponderance of ferns, the apparently total absence 

 of cycads, and the rarity of conifers. In other regions, for 

 example in England, Portugal, and Germany the cycads play a 

 preeminent role in Wealden vegetation. A collection containing 

 many conifers and some ferns has recently been made in the 

 Wealden strata at Bracquegnies, 30 kilometres east of Beimissart, 

 whilst specimens from Baume, 8 kilometres further east, consist 

 principally of conifers. 



It is also remarkable that the specimens of Weichselia Mantelli 

 and JLaccopteris Dunkeri are more numerous in the Bernissart 

 sediments than all others. Perhaps the deduction may be made 



