i9i4-] SOUTHEASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 181 



elude Europe and Antarctica, Miocene records are confined to Amer- 

 ica and Europe and Pliocene records include southern Europe and 

 Japan. 



While the foregoing analysis leaves a great many points in the 

 history of the Leguminosae unsolved it serves at least to show that 

 the Wilcox forms are all represented and would find a congenial 

 habitat in the present day American tropics and that thus early some 

 of the main features of their present day development had been 

 differentiated. 



The most similar fossil display of these forms is to be found in 

 the Ypresian flora of Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight, which un- 

 fortunately have never been described or figured, but of which 

 Ettingshausen 2s published an analysis and enumeration in 1880. 

 Another very similar display of forms is that described by Engel- 

 hardt from the Tertiary of Cerro de Potosi in Bolivia. 29 The exact 

 age of the latter has never been determined although its resemblance 

 to this part of the Wilcox flora suggests the possibility that it is 

 Eocene instead of Pliocene, which later has been assumed to be its 

 age. This may, however, simply be a reflection of the similarity 

 between the Leguminosae of the Embayment area in the Lower 

 Eocene and those of subsequent periods in the American tropics. 



The order Geraniales includes 21 families, with upwards of 

 ten thousand existing species, of which nearly one half belong to the 

 family Euphorbiaceae. The other large families in the order of their 

 size are the Rutaceae, Meliaceae, Malpighiaceae, and Polygalaceae 

 each with over five hundred existing species, while the Geraniaceae, 

 Oxalidaceae, and Burseraceae each have over three hundred existing 

 species. The alliance is mainly cyclic in the character of its floral 

 members, starting with isocarpic forms and progressing in the direc- 

 tion of reduction in the number of carpels. The phylogenetic im- 

 portance of the characters by which the Geraniales as an order is 

 separated from the evidently allied Sapindales is not great and in 

 some respects the order is apparently not a natural one. Six fam- 

 ilies of Geraniales have been recognized in the Wilcox flora. The 



28 Ettingshausen, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond., Vol. 30, 1880, pp. 228-236. 

 20 Engelharclt, Site, naturwiss. Gesell. Isis in Dresden, 1887, Abh. 5, pp. 

 36-38, 7 Figs.; Ibid., 1894, Abh. I, pp. 3-13, PI. I. 



