Re: Jurassic forest in DC

[Tompaleo@aol.com]

In a message dated 97-02-03 03:10:12 EST, you write:

>       The United States Botanic Garden at the foot of Capitol Hill,
>  Washington, DC features a "Jurassic Forest" in one wing. As their
>  display states, no grasses, no flowering plants. You walk a pathway
>  (with reproduced dinosaur tracks) past and under ferns, cyclads, junipers,

> mosses, sagos, and yews. 
>       Scattered in the undergrowth are conifer cones from the middle
>  cretaceous, a triassic conifer branch, a petrified log, and a
Dilophosaurus 
> footprint. By a small stream you see modeled eggs, with an Allosaurus
>  having just emerged from its shell.
>       In the rest of the Garden the annual orchid exhibit continues through 
> February 23.
>  
>  
Some of those footprints are supposed to be REAL! I helped collect them along
with Rob Weems, Peter Kranz and employees of the Botanic Gardens ca 1993.
They were recovered from the Pasaic Formation , Newark Supergroup (Late
Triassic I believe though I have seen a recent date of Early Jurassic
somewhere) near Coopersburg Pa. The tracks were principally of the
'grallator' type , all but one were theropod, and we may have even recovered
a prosauropod track but I have never heard what the final word on it was.
Admittadly though, the last time I was at the 'Gardens' I did not see the
tracks we busted our buts cutting but they should be there. I'll check with
Kranz to get the lodown!
peter used to sell T-shirts with the Jurassic forest motif that said "come to
the dinosaur garden", wait... I forgot, I'm wearing the damn thing under my
sweat shirt ...

It says 'come play in the dinosaur garden' and shows a picture of a Nanosaurus
 scurrying among the brush. A footnote explains the scene then in big letters
under that are U.S. Botanic Gardens.


ORCHIDS!!!
I expect to be in DCnext Monday or Tuesday and must see (and maybe buy one or
two)  the orchids. Yes another passion which I too am addicted. I even have a
reprint of a paper on the fossil history of the Orchidacea. They may have
evolved in the Late Cretaceous...

regards,

Thomas R. Lipka 
Paleontological/Geological Studies