Bulletin 3. The flora of the Raritan Formation, 1911 - State of New ...

BO,TANICAL CHARACTER. 35
IV. BOTANICAL CHARACT[R.
The present enumeration of Raritan plants embraces between
I6o and i7o species. Of this number there are from 15 to 2o
whose botanical relations are unknown. The balance show the
following disposition in the great phylae of the vegetable kingdom:
Two Thallophytes are recorded, one a fungus and the
other an alga. Doubtless other representatives of this great
plant phylum were abundant during Raritan time, and possibly
other species could be recorded, but they are so vague in their
characters as to be of little value, except in so far as they show
the presence of these types of plants at this remote epoch.
The Pteridophytes, or fern-plants, are represented by 9
species, or .0559'0 of the whole flora. In the existing flora of
New Jersey the percentage is .038%, but this is lowered by
herbaceous plants which are absent from the fossil record. Thus
the Raritan record shows a remarkable shrinkage as compared
with floras of the older Mesozoic, The species present in the
New Jersey beds are all wide-ranging forms of little peculiar
interest in this connection, and, they fall in those Cretaceous
groups which represent the modern families, Gleicheniaceae,
Cyatheacea_, Polypodiace,'e and Ophioglossaceae. The ferns
are more abundant in the Raritan focmatior_ than they are in
the Magothy formatio1_ or the Dakota group, while they are
considerably less abundant than. in the flora of the Atane beds
of Greenland, where they constitute I I _'o of the whole flora.
As might be expected, the great bulk of the Raritan plants
belong to the Spermatophyta, or seed-plants, and of these 24: are
referred to the Gymnospermae, almost twice as mar_y as are
present in the recent gymnospermous flora of the State. These
are relatively much more abundant, both in individuals and in
species, than they are in the Tertiary or recent floras. Six are
referred to the cycads, one of which is based, on a cone, one on
seed remains, and the bManee on frond fragments. The oIder
Mesozoic abounded in eycadophytes, which at that time were
NEW JERSEY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY