A NEW CRETACEOUS CONIFER FROM NORTHERN ALASKA

ONE OF THE results of the 1951 University of Michigan paleobotanical expedition to northem Alaska (Arnold, 1952) was the discovery of a new fossil member of the Taxodiaceae that is intermediate between Taxodium and Metasequoia. It represents a heretofore unknown genus for which the name Parataxodiwm is proposed. Its only species, P. wigginsii, is named in recognition of Dr. I. L. Wiggins, who, at the time of the expedition, was scientific director of the Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow, and whose interest in the project contributed much to the success of the venture. The expedition, carried out during July and August of 1951, was for the purpose of exploring Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 for fossil plants. It was financed by the Office of Naval Research with the Arctic Research Laboratory supplying equipment and serving as the operational base. Because there are few named landmarks in that part of Alaska explored in 1951, the places where fossil plants were found are difficult to specify with precision. However, almost all maps of Alaska, even those of large scale, show a major bend in the Colville River about 75 miles south of the place where it flows into the Arctic Ocean. At this bend the river changes its course from an easterly one to almost due north. The new conifer was found about six miles downstream from this bend, on the right bank near the base of a high cliff. The locality is also three miles below the place where the Chandler River flows into the Colville and two miles upstream from the mouth of the Anaktuvuk River. Both of these tributaries, however, enter the Colville on the opposite side from where the plants were found. Positions of the lines of latitude and longitude differ as much as ten miles on different maps of the region under consideration, but on the Umiat map sheet of the Alaska Reconnaissance Topographic Series of the United States Geological Survey, Edition of 1952, the plant locality is in the vicinity of the place where parallel 690 30' north crosses meridian 1510 30' west. The high cliffs that flank the west bank of the Colville River extend for several miles both upstream and downstream from the plant localitv. At places they rise precipitously from the edge of the water to heights of 100 feet or more. Above the initial rise they may continue upward less steeply to still greater heights. The cliffs form a prominent headland in the angle of the bend mentioned above. Downstream for a few miles they trend away from the river channel but approach it again in the vicinity of the place where the plants were found.