216 BERRY— LOWER EOCENE FLORA OF [April 25, 



the North American Cretaceous described as Celastrophylliim and 

 already referred to in the discussion of the Celastrace?e are very 

 probably, in part at least, referable to this family, so that enough is 

 known of the geologic history of the group to confirm at least the 

 statement made in a preceding paragraph that it must have had a 

 long and extended history. 



The family Laurace?e with in the neighborhood of 1,000 existing 

 species distributed among forty to fifty genera is often placed next 

 to the family Anonacese among the Ranales (c. g., in Engler and 

 Prantl's " Naturlichen Pfianzenfamilien "). It may be noted, how- 

 ever, that the spiral arrangement of floral organs characteristic of 

 the order Ranales is replaced by a cyclic ararngement and hypogny 

 is also replaced by epigyny, so that I follow various students in 

 referring the Lauracese to the order Thymeleales, the other large 

 family of which, the Thymelaeaceae (not known in Wilcox flora), 

 has about 400 existing species, chiefly of temperate Australia and the 

 Cape region of Africa. 



The geographical distribution of the Lauracere cannot be disposed 

 of in a similar simple statement since there are not only many 

 anomalies in the distribution of the existing species but we know so 

 considerable a part of the geologic history that our difficulties seem 

 increased thereby rather than diminished. For example the existing 

 species of the family are divided into eight tribes, no one of which 

 except the monotypic Eusideroxyle?e of Borneo is restricted to a 

 single continental region. 



The largest of these tribes is the Cinnamome?e with upwards of 

 500 species endemic on all the continents but Europe, and chiefly 

 Asiatic and American. The four genera Pcrsca, Phoebe, Notaphcche 

 and Mespilodaphnc are found in both hemispheres ; Cinnamomum 

 and Machilus are oriental; while Orcodaphnc, SfrycluiodapJine, 

 Nectandra, Plenrothrium, Umhelhdaria, DicypclUiim and Synandro- 

 daphne are occidental ; the first three being large genera and the 

 last four being monotypic. 



The tribe Litsere, with six genera and about 200 species, is 

 represented on all the continents except Europe and Africa. Only 

 9 of these two hundred species are found in the Occident and yet 

 among these is the monotypic North American genus Sassafras, and 



