378 GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



acteristic of strata of the European perrnian, and which are found in our 

 coal-measures as far down as the first coal above the millstone grit. 

 Even peculiar ferns of our upper coal strata have a typical analogy with 

 species of the oolite of England. Our trias, by the presence of numerous 

 cycadeae, touches the Jurassic of Europe. But it is especially from our 

 flora of t^he lower cretaceous that we have a vegetable exposition pecu- 

 liarly at variance with that of Europe at the same epoch, and whose 

 types so much resemble those of the European tertiary that the evi- 

 dence of the age of the formation, where the plants have been found, 

 could not be admitted by paleontologists until after irrefutable proofs 

 of it had been obtained. 



Professor Newberry, in the report mentioned above, has already given 

 sufficient details of the history of these plants, the scientific value of 

 their discovery, the interest and the discussion which they have kindled. 

 He has also rendered full justice to the researches of Dr. F. V. Hayden, 

 to whom we owe what we may consider as the most important materials 

 furnished at our time to the consideration of vegetable paleontology. 

 Professor Newberry's enumeration of our cretaceous and tertiary plants 

 is limited to what was known after the exploration of Messrs. Marcou 

 and Cappellini in 1863. Since then the researches of Professor Hayden 

 and Dr. J. Leconte have procured new materials, which have been de- 

 scribed and figured for a final report of Professor Hay den's exploration. 

 These materials are now briefly examined in order to render as complete 

 as possible our review of the American cretaceous and tertiary flora and 

 of its relation to the European flora of the same epochs. 



SECTION 1. — CRETACEOUS FLORA. 



In 1867 Dr. John Leconte had the kindness to send me a small lot of 

 cretaceous fossil plants from Fort Ellsworth, Kansas ; the same locality 

 where had been obtained the cretaceous leaves collected by Messrs. 

 Marcou and Capellini, and described by Professor Heer. These plants 

 were figured and described as an appendix to a paper on species of fos- 

 sil plants from the tertiary of the State of Mississippi.* Though the 

 lot of these specimens was small, it furnished an interesting contribu- 

 tion to the fossil botany of the cretaceous, especially in confirmation of 

 what had been already remarked on the miocenic facies of this flora. 

 Besides Proteoides acuta, P. grevillkeformis, Andromeda Parlatorii, and 

 Magnolia altemans, already described by Professor Heer in his memoir 

 on the leaves of Marcou and Capellini, the appendix mentions a new 

 species, Populates microphyllus, represented only by two partly -broken 

 specimens; PhylUtes betulcefolius, a leaf still smaller than the former 

 ones, with irregularly dentate borders and an irregular (somewhat ob- 

 scure) nervation ; Sassafras JLeconteanum, a fine large ovate lanceolate 

 leaf, resembling, by its outlines, a leaf of Magnolia, but with the pecu- 

 liar nervation of sassafras ; Persea liebr'ascensis, related to Per sea lanci- 

 folia (Heer) and other species of the mioeene and of the eocene of Europe ; 

 Cinnamomum Heerii, (Lesqx.,) a plant already described from specimens 

 collected by Dr. J. Evans at Nanaimo.t This species, in both collections, 

 is represented by one specimen only; and as the Ellsworth specimen has 

 its base scraped away, and that of Nebraska has the point broken, the 

 comparison of both leaves is not quite satisfactory, and therefore the 

 identity is not certain. The leaves have, indeed, the same general out- 



* Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, Vol. XIII, page 340, Plate 23, May, 1667. 

 t Amer. Jour, of Nat. Science and Arts, Vol. XXVII, page 161. 



