1 882.] Tertiary Flora of the Western Territories. 107 



the Miocene, especially in that of Europe, in remarkably similar 

 forms of leaves. Even Liriodendron giganteum of the Dakota 

 group, considering the leaves only, is reproduced in L. tulipifcra 

 of the present North American flora. The same observation can 

 be made on Fagus and Quercus, in comparing Fag us polyclada 

 and Quercus primordialis of the Cretaceous, which without rep- 

 resentative in the plants of the Laramie group, have species of 

 similar type in the Miocene and also in the flora of this epoch. 

 The Cretaceous Platanus primceva is comparable to the Miocene 

 P. gulielmce, while of the types of Aralia, so remarkaby abun- 

 dant in the Cretaceous of Kansas, two are found at Carbon and 

 Evanston, and none in the Lignitic. Aralia quinquepartita, fig- 

 ured U. S. Geol. Repts., vn, PL xv, f. 6, and still from better 

 specimen, Vol. vin (ined.), PI. vn, f. 4, is reproduced in Aralia 

 augustiloba of the Pliocene (gold gravel formation) of California. 

 More of this same kind of analogy could be given, but the above 

 is sufficient to prove that the characters of the flora of the Lara- 

 mie group, or Eocene, greatly differ both from those of the Cre- 

 taceous and of the Miocene of this continent. 



That they are related, and some of them positively identical 

 with those of the Eocene of Europe, is remarked by Dr. Gardner, 

 who has found in the Eocene of England, among a number of 

 ferns, two species identified in the flora of the Laramie group. 

 The table in the U. S. Geol. Repts., Vol. vn, p. 314, etc., indicates 

 the relation of the plants of the Lignitic with those of different 

 formations and localities as it was known when the volume was 

 published. With the flora of Sezane, for example, the affinity is 

 marked by twenty-one species. Since then a new kind of palm 

 Ludoviopsis, obtained at Golden, indicates affinity to a species of 

 Sezane, and another that of a finely preserved dicotyledonous 

 kaf, figured in the same volume, PL xv, f. 5, is recognized by 

 Saporta as identical to one of his species of the same locality, 

 Sterculia modesta, thus increasing in a remarkable degree, the 

 evidence of the relation of the flora of the Laramie group with 

 that of the Eocene of Sezane. 



But the review and discussion of the data concerning the Ter- 

 tiary age of the Lignitic may be now of little importance, as all 

 the phytopalaeontologists who have entered into the discussion, 

 have recognized the Tertiary characters of its flora. For it 

 1S evid ent that a number of the species described as Mio- 



