238 BERRY— LOWER EOCENE FLORA OF [April as, 



mas, Cuba and the east coast of southern Mexico. In addition to 

 the foregoing records at least four kinds of flowers have been de- 

 scribed from the Baltic amber (Sannoisian). These are Berendtia 

 Goeppert (2 species), Myrsinopsis Conwenz, and ScnacUa Gceppert. 



While the geologic history of the family is thus so incomplete it 

 is not without significance in this case as in the case of so many fami- 

 lies previously discussed, that a predominantly American family in 

 the existing flora has its oldest known fossil occurrences in the basal 

 Upper Cretaceous of Xorth America. 



The order Ebenales includes the families Sapotacese, Ebenacea?, 

 Styracace?e and Symplocaceas, together with upward of one thou- 

 sand existing species, the larger families being the Sapotaceae and 

 Ebenacere, both of which are represented in the Wilcox flora, while 

 the other two families are sparingly represented in the European 

 Tertiary. There is considerable range in floral structures from 

 indefiniteness in the number of stamens and carpels and polypetaly, 

 to a 4 to 8 cyclic arrangement, which leads floral morphologists to 

 consider the order as among the most primitive of the Gamopetalae. 



The family Sapotacese comprises trees or shrubs with a milky 

 juice and with alternate, simple, entire, mostly coriaceous, petiolate, 

 exstipulate leaves. It contains about thirty-two genera and nearly 

 four hundred existing species of all tropical countries. About half 

 of the existing species are American. There are eleven genera con- 

 fined to America, seven to Africa, three to Australia, two to New- 

 Caledonia, two to Asia and Malaysia, two to Malaysia and one to 

 Asia. The three large genera, Sidcroxylon, Chrysophyllum and 

 Mimusops, are represented in all tropical countries. There are four 

 genera and twelve species represented in the Wilcox flora. The 

 largest of these genera is Bumclia Swartz with six well-marked Wil- 

 cox species. Bumclia with about a score of species is confined to 

 America in the existing flora, ranging from the southern United 

 States through the West Indies and Central America to Brazil. It 

 has numerous fossil species, the oldest coming from the Upper Cre- 

 taceous (Dakota sandstone) of the western interior. In addition 

 to the six W'ilcox species, which are prototypes of still existing form-, 

 there are two Eocene species (Ypresian) in southern England. 



