276 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIII. 
Cretaceous and Tertiary Plants.'— Botanists who are engaged 
in studying the plants of the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations 
will fully appreciate the service rendered by Professor Knowlton’s 
latest contribution in the form of a catalogue of these plants, which 
have always had a special interest because of their often close con- 
nection with the flora of our own time. The catalogue possesses 
double value in that it not only records most of the species so far 
discovered, but includes also a full and valuable bibliography of the 
subject. It gives striking evidence of the very rapid growth of our 
knowledge of this flora during the past twenty years, a fact which 
becomes all the more apparent when we observe that a number of 
new species have been recorded since its issue. 
Miocene Flora.?— In recent studies of the Miocene plants as 
found at Idaho City, Idaho (“ Payette formation ”), Professor Knowl- 
ton enumerates twenty-nine species, of which 59 per cent are recog- 
nized as new. 
Permian Flora.*— One of the richest and most interesting de- 
posits of Permian plants in France is to be found at Lodève, where 
the slates have supplied material which has been studied by Bron- 
gniart and others since 1830. Zeiller now reviews all the available 
material, and is enabled to announce the addition of six new species, 
of which five belong to the genus Callipteris. 
Cretaceous Cycads.*— Within the last five years there has been 
brought together a somewhat remarkable collection of Cycads from 
the cretaceous formation of the Black Hills. They number 155 
specimens of trunks in various states of completeness and preserva- 
tion, and belong chiefly to Yale University. This material has been 
studied by Prof. Lester F. Ward, who finds that among different 
species the height varies from 12 cm. to 130 cm., the diameter from 
4 cm. to 75 cm., and that in most cases they represent a type of 
1 Knowlton, Frank Hall. A Catalogue of the Cretaceous and Tertiary Plants 
of North America, Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., 1898. 
? Knowlton, Frank Hall. Report on the Fossil Plants of the Payette Forma- 
tion, Eighteenth Annual Report U.S. Geol. Surv. (1896-97), Pt. iii, p. 721. 
3 Zeiller, M. R. Contribution a l’étude de la flore ptéridologique des schistes 
pone de Lodève, Bull. Mus. Marseilles (1898), Pt. i, vol. i, p. 9. 
Ward, Lester F. Descriptions of the Species of Cycadoidea, or Fossil Cy¢a- 
` dean Trunks thus far Determined from the Lower Cretaceous Rim of the Black 
Hills, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. xxi (1898), pp. 195-229. 
