1 882.] Tertiary Flora of the Western Territories. 105 



The Lowest Cretaceous flora of Groenland, that of Come, is 

 composed, as far as known, of seventy-five species, of which 

 forty-two represent Cryptogamous acrogens, ferns, Lycopods and 

 Equisetaceae ; nine Cycadeae, seventeen conifers, six monocotyle- 

 donous and only one dicotyledonous angiosperm plant. Com- 

 posed as it is, the group has rather the character of a Jurassic 

 than of a Cretaceous flora. It is, however, related with Atane 

 by five identical species, three ferns and two conifers, and also by 

 that first or more ancient dicotyledonous plant, a Populus of the 

 same type as three other forms of this genus described from 



What conclusions can be derived from the above? The char- 

 acter of the flora of Come being Jurassic, the formation which it 

 characterizes cannot be considered as Tertiary. Heer thinks even 

 that the true Cretaceous begins with the flora of Atane. But 

 admitting Come as lowest Cretaceous, we may follow the relation 

 of its flora through Atane, not only with the Dakota group, but 

 with all the formations mentioned above from Germany — Qued- 

 linburg, Moletin, the Quader-sandstone and others; and, there- 

 fore, to admit the Dakota group to the Tertiary, it would be ne- 

 cessary to erase from the Cretaceous, as it is constituted, the 

 whole of the formations related to it with Come, or the whole of 

 the formations where angiospermous plants have been found. 



On the second question considered in the memoirs of Mr. 

 Starkie Gardner and Dr. Newberry, or the relative age of the 

 Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary formations of North America in 

 comparison with those of England, I have to omit the facts 

 derived from animal palaeontology. I can only briefly remark on 

 the affinity and disparity of some vegetable types of the Dakota 

 group compared to those of the American Eocene (the so-called 

 Laramie or Lignitic group); of the Miocene of Carbon, and on the 

 relation of the plants of the Lignitic with those of the Eocene of 

 England and France. 



From what is known until now of the plants of the American 

 formations named above, the flora of the Dakota group is, as said 

 already, more distinctly related by analogy and identity of species 

 to that of the Miocene than to that of the Lignitic. Except the 

 dose affinity remarked between Cinnamomum Neerii(U. S. Geol. 

 Kept, vi, p. 8 4l PI. xxviii, f. ii) and Cinnamomum affine (same 

 Re Pt, Vii, PI. xxxvii, f. 1-5, 7), I do not know of any Cretaceous 



