TERTIARY FOSSIL PLANTS FROM THE DOMINICAN 



REPUBLIC. 



By Edward W. Berry, 



Of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. 



INTRODUCTION. 



During the reconnaissance of the Dominican Republic, made during 

 1919 under the direction of T. Wayland Vaughan for the Dominican 

 Government, fossil plants were collected at seven different localities. 

 Most of this material is very poor, and determinable forms are 

 confined to the five following of these localities: 



At locality 8685 (D. C. 5) a brown sandy clay collected by C. W. 

 Cooke and D. D. Condit furnished a specifically undeterminable 

 Inga. At locality 8739 (D. C. 65) a gray friable sandstone furnished 

 a specifically undeterminable Melastomites collected by D. D. Condit, 

 At locality 8607 (C-21— 19) C. W. Cooke collected Calyptrantlus 

 domingensis, new species, from a late Tertiary or Pleistocene clay, 

 exposed in a bluff on Samana Bay about 1£ miles east of Sanchez. 

 The fourth locality, No. 8684 (D. C. 4), has furnished most of the 

 determinable forms. This is a yellowish sandy clay exposed in a cut 

 near the pier at Sanchez, and the collectors were C. W. Cooke and 

 D. D. Condit. The fifth locality, about 1 mile west of Los Bancos, 

 Azua Province, furnished the type of Sophora coohei. 



The total number of forms identified is eleven, a much too small a 

 number to give a correct idea of the botanical facies or of the geo- 

 logical age beyond the obvious facts that they indicate a tropical 

 habitat and a Tertiary age. There are no traces of ferns or palms, 

 and the majority of the forms, such as Pisonia, Sophora, Sapindus, 

 Calyptranthes, Bucida, and Bumelia, are obviously strand types, as 

 might well be true of the remainder. There are no traces of any of 

 the typical plants of the Mangrove association, nor Lauraceae or 

 Moraceae, all types normally present in tropical -Tertiary floras. 



The only previous record of fossil plants from the whole island, 

 other than a reference to their presence by Gabb, is the determination 

 by the writer of the genera Inga, Nectandra, and Eugenia in material 

 collected by Miss C. J. Maury in the valley of Rio Yaque del Norte in 

 connection with her work on the Mollusca of that region, and quoted 

 by her in the discussion of the faunas. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 59-No. 2363. 



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