This paper presents paleobotanical analyses and discussion bearing on the age, correlation, and stratigraphic relationships of the Cretaceous plant-bearing beds of the Coastal Plain from New Jersey to South Carolina.

In New Jersey evidence is presented which challenges the recent correlation, by Spangler and Peterson, of the greater part of the plant-bearing Raritan formation with the Potomac group of Maryland-Delaware, and the assignment, by the same authors, of the major part of the Raritan formation to the Early Cretaceous. It is shown that both floral and faunal evidence supports the assignment of the Raritan formation to the early Late Cretaceous; and that both floral and faunal evidence indicates that none of the Potomac group formations can be correlated with any part of the Raritan formation of New Jersey.

In the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia area the assignment of the Arundel and Patapsco formations of the Potomac group to the Late Cretaceous, as is done in two recent reports, is shown to be based on doubtful evidence. These formations are here regarded as more reasonably assignable to the Early Cretaceous, on the evidence of both plants and vertebrates. The beds overlying the Potomac group in Maryland and Delaware are here considered correctly assigned to the Raritan formation.

In North Carolina the flora of the lower Black Creek formation is regarded as of essentially the same age as the Raritan and Magothy floras farther north, rather than of Matawan age as indicated in the Cretaceous correlation chart by the National Research Council Committee. In South Carolina the plant-bearing beds of the upper part of Cooke's Tuscaloosa formation are reassigned to the Middendorf member of the Black Creek formation, and are shown to be equivalent in age to the lower Black Creek formation of North Carolina. The name "Tuscaloosa formation" is abandoned for beds in both North and South Carolina which are here referred to the "Lower Cretaceous? (undifferentiated)."