| This small collection (cached 35 years ago and retrieved in 1982) has only three, possibly four taxa, but nonetheless it is an interesting and possibly very important collection. The following fossils are present: A number of fairly large but nondescript compressed axes. These cannot be identified as to genera. Two very faint and poorly preserved whorls of finely divided leaflike appendages that resemble SPHENOPHYLLUM TENERRIMUM. Two lycopod twigs with densely arranged foliage, which cannot be identified to a genus. A detached foliar fragment consisting of two basally connected wedge-shaped lobes with rounded tips. This may represent either ANEIMITES or ADIANTITES, but there are no grounds for identification more than speculation. A number of fragments of a decompound fernlike plant with rounded ultimate segments. Some of the latter are broadly fan-shaped, and all have constricted bases (this, I believe, is the plant you refer to as having “unusual leaves”, and is the dominant element in this florule.) While the preservation is not good enough for an absolutely reliable specific determination, this plant is very similar to foliage placed in SPHENOPTERIS OBTUSILOBA. Other apparently closely related forms are EUEPHENOPTERIS STRIATA and e. HOLLANDICA. These are all common in the Carboniferous (particularly Westphalian A through C) but I know of no occurrences below Namurian B. This is a difficult florule to assign to a floral zone, because none of the Read and Mamay zone markers is recognizeable. The ?ANEIMITES or ?ADIANTITES fragment is very suspect, so that a reliable Mississippian index fossil is not there. The sphonopterid did not enter into the R & M zonation, and I can’t recall having seen it in any other Alaskan collection except another old one, made by George Gryc in 1950 (69o 15 min; 145o 01 min. 50 sec., Canning River District) and briefly reported on by Jim Schopf. The Gryc material looks the same as the Mangus material, although George collected somewhat more (the same sphenopterid is definitely present in both collections). Jim’s report says “---Most abundant is a sphenopterid form reminiscent of SPHENOPTERIS OBTUSILOBA of the Upper Carboniferous. Numerous examples of ADIANTITES are present on some slabs-----“. Jim was on the right track regarding the sphenopterid, but I can’t recognize any ADIANTITES in the collection. Jim’s comments were noncommittal regarding age implications of the collection; his report simply says “Mississippian”, in agreement with the collector’s notes. My feeing is that the presence of the OBTUSILOBA foliar form gives this collection a post-Mississippian flavor, and I would hesitate to assign it to zones 1-3. Perhaps it is representative of earliest Pennsylvanian time (?zone 4) or the uppermost Mississippian zone postulated by R & M on page K6 of PP 454K. At any rate it looks younger than any of the Alaskan Paleozoic material I’ve previously reported on (with the exception of Reed’s collection from Mount Dall), and it seems to lend credence to your ideas on northward transgression. The collection is being retained for the P&S reference set. |