A PALM NUT FROM THE MIOCENE OF THE CANAL ZONE. 



By Edward W. Berry, 



Of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. 



The fossil plants collected during the geological work by T. W. 

 Vaughan and others in the Canal Zone have been described recently 

 by M. A. Howe 1 and the writer. 2 Subsequently I have received 

 from the United States National Museum several small and exceed- 

 ingly fragmentary collections that contain nothing noteworthy except 

 a new and fairly well characterized palm fruit. This comes from 

 locality 5S45, which is 1$ miles northeast of Gatun and overlooking 

 the Gatun Locks, and seems worthy of special comment. The geo- 

 logical horizon is the Gatun formation, which comprises the latest 

 pre-Pliocene sediments recognized in the Canal Zone, and in terms of 

 the European section, as determined by Vaughan, is Burdigalian or 

 Helvetian in age. 3 



It has been customary among paleobotanists to refer fossil palm 

 fruits to the genus Palmocarpon Lesquereux unless they possessed 

 very obvious relationships with existing genera as in the case of the 

 Eocene forms referred to the genus Nipadites. In the case of the 

 present form I am constrained to depart from this custom since the 

 fossil greatly resembles the fruits of the tribe Iriarteae, and refer the 

 new species to the genus Iriartites 4 , the type of which is IriartiUs 

 tumbezensis Berry, 5 a feather palm described recently from the 

 Miocene of the north Peruvian coast. 



IRIARTITES VAUGHANI, new species. 



Nut an unsymmetrical prolate spheroid in general form, rounded 

 proximad and slightly narrowed distad, slightly over 4 cm. in length, 

 3.3 cm. in maximum width, and 2.8 cm. in maximum thickness. 

 Hilum large, eccentric, about 5 mm. in diameter. Surface roughened 

 by a covering of narrow Hat elongated overlapping fibers exactly as 



1 Howe, M. A. On soma fossil and recent Lithothamnieae of the Panama Canal Zone. Bull. U. S. Nat. 

 Mas. 103, pp. 1-13, pis. 1-11. 1919. 

 1 Berry, E. W. The fossil higher plants from the Canal Zone. Idem. pp. 15-14, pis. 12-18. 

 * See Vaughan, Idem. Table facing page 595. 

 < Berry, E. W. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 55, p. 285, 1919. 

 » Idem, pi. 14. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 59-No. 2356. 



21 



