The Genus Winchellia, — Lesquereux. 211 
Department op the Interior, 
United States Geological Survey. 
• Washington, D. C, April 12, 1*93. 
Prof. X. H. Winchell, 
State Geologist of Minnesota, 
Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
Dear Prof. Winchell: — Yours of the 8th inst. relative to the genus 
Winchellia is received. I hardly know what to advise. The plant that 
LeBquereux so named is a very interesting and important one, and it is 
not at all probable that anything like it has ever been found elsewhere 
or described in any work. I should be very glad, therefore, if Prof. 
Lesquereux's desire to name it after you could be carried out. 
I, of course, know nothing of the Carboniferous plant which it is 
proposed to name in honor of your brother Alexander, but, on general 
principles, I should say that unless wide comparisons are made with all 
the forms that have heretofore been named from the Carboniferous 
there might be danger that the name would be preoccupied. The 
Carboniferous flora is so vast and the literature so great that I would 
certainly recommend great care in this matter, and I take this oppor- 
tunity to offer to the author of the genus all the information that we 
possess at Washington in making this point certain. It is very disap- 
pointing to name a genus in honor of one so worthy as your brother 
certainly was, to find afterwards that the plant has been previously 
called by some other name. 
•I* •?* *P *P *I* *f* n> *|* If- 
The history of the genus Winchellia Lx., so far as I know it, is as 
follows: On the 19th of April, 1886, Prof. Lesquereux wrote me a let- 
ter transmitting a set of photographs of drawings he had had made of 
fossil plants from the Cretaceous of the west, and was then describing 
for publication. Of the thirty plates thus represented, the last, or thir- 
tieth one, contains a beautiful figure, almost perfect, of a trifoliate leaf 
of Winchellia together with three fruits, which were figured 6n the 
supposition that they might belong to a similar genus. His account of 
it was as follows: "Winchellia is a new genus of a group of the Ber- 
beridacea?, of which we had no fossil representative as yet. The speci- 
men figured comes from the Yellowstone N. P. railroad, on the south 
side of the river, about a mile above the mouth of Powder river, where 
the bluff is cut by the R. R., about one hundred feet above the river. 
Do you know perhaps the plant or that locality, or the precise geologi- 
cal stage of it? From the character of the leaf I consider it as Terti- 
ary, for it has a remarkable affinity to Achlys triphylla, of California, 
of which I have had a drawing made to be published in order to show 
the relation of the fossil. Figs. 2 and ?> are fruits abundantly found in 
the lignitic deposits of Brandon, Vt., whose affinity had not as yet been 
recognized. I described them formerly as Carpolites brandonianns" 
There was another unnumbered plate showing a full-sized leaf of the 
Californian plant Achlys triphylla for comparison with Winchellia. 
I heard nothing more of the matter until Prof. Lesquereux sent on 
