124 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.59. 



Family MELASTOMATACEAE. 



Genus MELASTOMITES Unger. 



MELASTOMITES DOMINGENSIS, new species. 



Plate 21, fig. 7. 



Description. — The very fragmentary specimens representing the 

 genus Melastomites do not really merit a specific name since they are 

 too meager for any adequate diagnosis. Since, however, more rep- 

 resentative material may be a long time in coming to light, and it is 

 important to have a name of this form to use in discussion, and since 

 also where a fossil form is certainly not a representative of one already 

 described and which can be subsequently recognized there is no 

 reason for using "species" instead of a real name. 



Fragments indicate an ovate form pointed at both ends, with an 

 entire margin, a prominent and stout curved midrib, stout aerodrome 

 primaries, and less stout marginal aerodrome vein on either side which 

 may be modified to slightly arch from end to end of the straight ter- 

 tiaries extending outward from the lateral primaries. The latter are 

 united with the midrib by thin, close-spaced, transverse-curved, 

 inosculating tertiaries. The indicated size of these leaves is about 

 8 cm. in length and 3 cm. in maximum width. 



A small fragment of a leaf of Melastomites of either this or an 

 unknown species is contained in a collection made by D. D. Condit 

 from a gray friable sandstone lying beneath a conglomerate 5^ miles 

 up the Rio Gurabo from Gurabo Adentro (Loc. 8739). 



The genus Melastomites was proposed by Unger 10 and contains 

 several species in the Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene of Europe. 

 A form referred to this genus from the Upper Cretaceous of West- 

 phalia is probably Lauraceous. A single American species is known 

 from the Wilcox Eocene, 11 ' and a second has been described recently 

 from the Culebra formation of Panama. 1 - The family is a large one 

 in the existing flora, about 2,500 of the 3,000 species being found in 

 the American Tropics. 



Occurrence. — Locality No. 8684. Cut in clay near pier at Sanchez, 

 District of Samana. 



Holotype.—C&t. No. 35458, U.S.N.M. 



"• Unger, F., Gen. et sp. pi. foss., p. 480, 1850. 



" Berry, E. W., U. S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Paper 91, p. 327, pi. 97, figs. 1-3, 1910. 



n Berry, E. W., U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 103, p. 40, pi. 18, fig. 2, 1918. 



