222 K. W. Berry— Pleistocene Plants. 



ROSALES. 



Crataegus sp. Fig. 3. 



Tlie handsome little leaf shown in fig. 3 is unquestionably 

 a Crataegus and it would be a pleasure to be able to identify it 

 specifically, but this is impossible in the present stage of our 

 knowledge of the excessively numerous recent species of this 

 genus. 



The fossil suggests Crataegus cordata (Mill.) Ait., which is 

 found in woods and thickets along the mountains from Virginia 

 to Georgia. It also resembles Crataegus apiifolia (Marsh) 

 Michx. with its long and delicate petiole, but the latter species 

 is usually more lobate, relatively broader and with serrate 

 teeth. I have collected leaves of Crataegus coccinea Linne in 

 the coastal plain of North Carolina that only differed from the 

 fossil in a shorter and stouter petiole. It seems unlikely that 

 Crataegus had commenced to mutate into the existing irrecog- 

 nizable complex as early as the Pleistocene and the present 

 fossil occurrence may possibly represent the Pleistocene ances- 

 tor of numerous existing species. 



Sapindales. 

 Acer sp. 



A single leaf of a specifically indeterminable species of 

 maple is present in the collection. 



Ericales. 



Vaccinium arboreum Marsh. 



Berry, Torreva, vol. ix, p. 73, 1909. 



This Journal (4), vol. xxix, p. 398, 1910. 



This species has been found in the fossil state in the Talbot 

 Pleistocene of North Carolina and at a slightly older level 

 along the Alabama River in Alabama. 



In the existing flora it is found from North Carolina to Ken- 

 tucky and south to Florida and Texas. It may be recorded 

 from Virginia, but I know of no records of such an occurrence, 

 so that the fossil record is considerably to the northward of its 

 present range in the east. 



Summary. 



The foregoing notes show that at some time during the 

 Pleistocene several forms flourished on the western flanks of 

 the Blue Ridge many miles distant from their present limits of 

 distribution. What particular stage of the Pleistocene is rep- 

 resented by the clay lens is uncertain — possibly the late Pleis- 

 tocene if any reliance can be placed on the Talbot occurrences 

 of Taxodium distichum, Quercus alba, Quercus predigitata 

 and Vaccinum arboreum. Such correlation data are con- 



