196 BERRY— LOWER EOCENE FLORA OF [April 25, 



American genus Astronium but Engler (op. cit.) considers it most 

 like the .Malayan genus Parishia. 



The genus Metopiwm, not certainly recognized heretofore, has a 

 well-marked species in the Wilcox. Several Tertiary woods are 

 described by Linger as Rhoidium and Saporta has described a species 

 of Scliiiuts from the French Oligocene (Gargas) which is wrongly 

 determined according to Schenk (p. 541). 



The genus Spondicecarpum has a species in the early Eocene of 

 France and a second in the Aqnitanian of Rhenish Prussia. Recently 

 Fritel has described leaves from the Aquitanian of France which he 

 calls Semecarpites that are very close to the existing genus Seme- 

 carpus which has about 40 species ranging from India to Australia. 



The family Ilicacese (Aquifoliace?e) is a relatively small one com- 

 prising only five genera and about 180 existing species. They are 

 shrubs or trees with alternate, simple, entire or toothed, often cori- 

 aceous leaves. The flowers are small, dioecious and hypogynous. 

 The fruit is a drupe with a thin fleshy -arcocarp enclosing as many 

 crustaceous nutlets as there are carpels. The genus Ilex Linne to 

 which all but seven of the existing species are referred is found in 

 all tropical and temperate regions of the world except western 

 Xorth America, Australia, New Zealand and Xew Guinea. The 

 remaining genera of the family are Oncotheca Baillon with a single 

 species in Xew Caledonia, Nemopautlics Rafinesque with a single 

 species in temperate Xorth America, Sphenostemon Baillon with two 

 species in Xew Caledonia, and Byronia Endlicher with three specie-, 

 one in Tahiti, one in the Hawaiian Islands and one in Australia. 

 This modern distribution is a certain indication that the family has 

 an extended geologic history. 



( )ver a hundred fossil species have been referred to the genus 

 Ilex. At least thirteen species are recorded from the Upper Cre- 

 taceous. All but one from the Turonian of Bohemia are from the 

 western hemisphere and include two in the Raritan formation, three 

 in the Magothy formation, -even in the Dakota sandstone, one in the 

 Atane and two in the Patoot beds of western Greenland. 



There are about fourteen Eocene species including four in the 

 Wilcox, one in the Ypresian of England, one in the Fori Union, four 

 in the Green River beds, five in Greenland, one in Alaska and one in 



