180 BERRY— LOWER EOCENE FLORA OF [April 25, 



number about eighty forms found in the tropics of both hemispheres, 

 and all show a strong generic similarity in their foliar characters. 

 Over two-score fossil forms are known. The earliest of these occur 

 in the Atlantic Coastal Plain and western Greenland so that there is 

 a strong possibility that the genus was of American origin. If this 

 theory was correct they must have undergone a rapid radiation since 

 in the Eocene they are not only found in America and the Arctic 

 but in Europe and Australia. The Alum Bay beds of the Isle of 

 Wight (Ypresian) which I regard as contemporaneous, in part at least, 

 with the Wilcox, contain according to Ettingshausen, six species of 

 Dalbcrgia. European deposits furnish about a dozen Oligocene spe- 

 cies and still more numerous Miocene species. Dalbergia primceva 

 Unger, D. retusafolia Heer, D. hceringiana Ettingshausen and D. 

 bclla Heer are widespread coastal forms of the European Tertiary, 

 some of them ranging from the late Oligocene through the Miocene 

 and into the Pliocene. 



The genus Canavalia is represented in the Wilcox by a fine spe- 

 cies undoubtedly ancestral to the existing Canavalia obtitsifolia 

 (Lamarck) De Candolle, a widely distributed tropical strand plant. 

 A second species is less commonly represented and not as certainly 

 identified. The genus contains about a dozen existing species of the 

 tropics of both hemispheres but has not been heretofore found in 

 the fossil state. 



The Wilcox forms referred to Lcguminosites cannot be dealt 

 with satisfactorily since they represent pods and leaflets of this alli- 

 ance whose generic relations are uncertain. The form-genus was 

 proposed first by Bowerbank for the pyritized remains from the 

 Island of Sheppey (London Clay), and two of his species are tenta- 

 tively identified in the Wilcox. Subsequently many species have 

 been described. They range in age from the Middle Cretaceous to 

 the Pliocene. Saporta describes the oldest form in the Albian of 

 Portugal. They are present in the Cretaceous of Australia, the 

 Cenomanian of Saxony, the Atane and Patoot beds of Greenland, 

 and the Atlantic Coastal Plain Cretaceous from Marthas Vineyard 

 to Alabama. They arc common in the Arctic Eocene, occurring 

 also in Australia, America, Europe and Asia. Oligocene records in- 



