I9I4.] SOUTHEASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 241 



from Australia to Bohemia, Greenland, and Vancouver Island. A 

 large majority of these species are American, and they seem to have 

 been especially at home along the Cretaceous coast of the Atlantic 

 and along the border of the Mediterranean sea which extended north- 

 westward from the Gulf of Mexico over much of our present Great 

 Plains area. One of these species, well named Diospyros priinccva 

 by Professor Heer in 1866, is especially widespread and abundant, 

 being found not only in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska in the west but 

 also from Texas eastward through Alabama and northward in South 

 Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, Long Island and 

 Greenland, or from latitude ■^'^° to latitude 71° north. That these 

 early persimmons were not very different from those of today is 

 shown by their similar foliage. This resemblance is also shown by 

 the fossilized remains of the calices of various species. One of these 

 calices from another early Cretaceous species, recently described by 

 the writer, is Diospyros vera, found in what is known in the Potomac 

 River valley as the Raritan formation. Apparently the habit of 

 accrescence had not been fully formed but the calyx was persistent 

 then as now and entirely like a modern calyx in appearance. It was 

 four-parted as it usually is in existing persimmons, but other fossil 

 forms had a five-parted calyx like a good many present day tropical 

 species. 



In the Eocene epoch, which succeeded the Cretaceous, the records 

 of the fossil occurrences of Diospyros show that it was truly cos- 

 mopolitan. These records include about 20 species in Siberia, 

 Alaska and Greenland on the north ; Canada, various localities in 

 Europe, as well as Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Ore- 

 gon, Washington, and other western states. Unfortunately, we have 

 no Eocene or later Tertiary records along the Atlanic coast of North 

 America outside the embayment region since the preserved deposits 

 are all of marine origin and contain no fossil plants. There is little 

 doubt, however, that Diospyros continued to be an abundant element 

 in the aborescence flora of this area. 



There are two well-marked species of Diospyros in the Wilcox 

 flora, one of which continues in this region through the Claiborne. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, LIII. 214, P, PRINTED JULY I4, I914. 



