I9I4.] SOUTHEASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 233 



The genus Panax Linne with about six existing species in Asia 

 and Xorth America has furnished a number of fossil forms based 

 on numerous characteristic fruits as well as leaves. It is represented 

 from Greenland to Alabama along the west coast of the Atlantic 

 and in the Perucer beds of Bohemia (Araliphyllum) . It has five 

 species in the Oligocene of Europe and six Miocene species in 

 Europe and Colorado. The genus Cnssonia Thunberg with about 

 25 African species in the existing flora is doubtfully recorded from 

 the Albian of Portugal. It is present in the Perucer beds of Bohemia 

 (Ctissoniphyllum) and in the Oligocene of France and Greece. 



The genus Hedera Linne with only three existing species of 

 Europe, Asia and Africa has numerous and well-defined fossil 

 forms.*" Xo less than fifteen have been described from the Upper 

 Cretaceous of both America and Europe. There are about seven 

 Eocene species in Greenland, Alaska, the Fort Union of the western 

 United States, and in the Paleocene of Belgium and France. The 

 genus remains common during the Tertiary in Europe and is present 

 in America as late as the Upper Miocene lake of Florissant, Colorado. 

 The anecestor of the existing Hedera helix Linne occurs in the 

 Pliocene of central France and the modern form itself is found in 

 the Pleistocene of England, France and Italy. A species of Polyacias 

 occurs in the Pleistocene of Java associated with Pithecanthropus 

 erectus. 



The family Umbelliferse with 170 genera and upwards of two 

 thousand existing species is distinctly an extratropical family with 

 numerous boreal forms. The majority are herbaceous and of rela- 

 tively modern origin. It is very sparingly and doubtfully represented 

 in the fossil state and the only Wilcox form that suggests such an 

 affinity is the fruit described as Carpolithus prang osoides which 

 greatly resembles those of the existing genus Prangos Lindley. 



The third family of the LTmbellales, the Cornace?e, is a relatively 

 small one, with only sixteen genera and about 100 existing species, 

 mostly of the temperate zone. The fossil forms are confined to the 

 two genera Corniis and A^yssa. Cornus has about 40 existing species 

 of herbs and small trees mostly confined to the north temperate zone 



*' The forms from the Potomac group of Maryland and Virginia de- 

 scribed by Fontaine as species of Hedera phyUiim are entirely worthless. 



