904 
Stopes,—On the True Nature of the 
ever, in 1895 Newberry 1 identified some specimens from the Amboy clays 
with Heer’s species, saying, 4 there can be no mistake about the identity of 
the plant/ though he adds that as to its true nature there can be great 
difference of opinion. In the first place, I think there is doubt as to the 
absolute identity of the plants from the two deposits, as comparison of 
Newberry’s illustrations of his specimen (PL IX, Figs, 11, 12, 13) with 
Heer’s figure, before cited, testifies. Heer’s specimen is less than half the 
size of Newberry’s, and the two do not agree in detail, beyond the fact that 
both are slender aments. To conclude, as 
Newberry does, that ‘ they are interesting 
as being the fruit of some of the plants 
which are common to the Amboy clays 
and the Cretaceous beds of Atane, Green¬ 
land ’, is an illustration of the extremely 
slender foundation on which palaeo- 
botanical generalities have too often been 
based. 
Fig. 13 of Newberry illustrates his 
most perfect specimen, which is much more 
complete than those of Heer. It shows a 
curved spike on a stalk, with two pointed 
linear leaves or bracts springing from the 
same stem. It will be remembered that 
there were no leaves recorded from- the 
Greenland specimens. 
In New York, through the kind 
courtesy of Dr, Britton of Bronx Park, I had 
the opportunity to examine Newberry’s 
own collection. The original of his Fig. 13 
appeared to me to show rather more of 
the leaf-like structures than does his figure. 
Fig. 1 is a sketch I made from New¬ 
berry’s original. It shows the two linear 
leaves attached, and evidence of a third, which looks as though it had 
belonged to the same fascicle, with others which were doubtless belonging 
to the same axis. The matrix is not very favourable, either for actual 
preservation or for photography, as it is a friable clay with no strong 
colour contrast between the specimen and the matrix; but what is given in 
my sketch is easily recognized with the naked eye. 
The leaves attached to the axis are so similar to those of other 
specimens without cones which have been identified as three-leaved pines, 
Fig. 1. Sketch drawn in New York 
from Newberry’s original specimen for his 
Fig. 13. This shows the cone and axis 
with leaves attached, of what has hitherto 
been called Ophioglossum , and is really a 
Pinus 6 cone. 
1 * Flora of the Amboy Clays/ posthumous, ed. by Hollick. 
xxvi, 1895. See also p. 43, PI. LX, Figs. H-13. 
U. S. Geol. Surv., Monog., vol. 
