578 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.59. 



Order EBENALES (?). 

 Family SYMPLOCACEAE (?). 



Genus ANTHOLITHUS Brongniart. 



ANTHOLITHUS VENEZUELENSIS, new species. 



Plate 107, fig. 5. 



Calyx or coralla five parted, gamopetalous or gamosepalous, 

 divided more than halfway to the base into five, broadly ovate, 

 very faintly mucronate, divisions. Diameter, 5 mm. The matrix is 

 coarse, so that the preservation is not of the best. The calyx or 

 coralla is tiny and seems to have been of considerable consistency. 



The botanical position of floral remains unless they are unusually 

 well preserved, which they usually are not, is beset with almost 

 unsurmountable difficulties. In the present case the small size 

 precludes their reference to such genera as Getonia. After consider- 

 able comparison the choice of relationship appears to me to narrow 

 to the order Ebenales, and more especially to the families Styracaceae 

 and Symplocaceae. Both are still plentiful in the American Tropics; 

 the latter, to which I tentatively refer the present specimen, having 

 about one-third of the existing 150 to 200 species confined to the 

 American, and chiefly the South American Tropics. The balance of 

 the existing species are oriental and chiefly southeastern Asiatic. 



A considerable number of fossil forms, both of Symplocos and Sty rax, 

 have been described. Thus there are about 15 forms of Symplocos 

 recorded from the Oligocene and Miocene of Europe; and about 20 

 forms of Styrax, mostly from the European Tertiary, but including 

 two forms from the early Eocene of the western United States, and 

 two from the lower Miocene of Chile. In addition to the latter, 

 Englehardt has described foliage of Styrax from near Santa Ana in 

 the Magdalena Valley in Colombia, 29 and I have tentatively identified 

 the same form from the Miocene of northern coastal Peru. 30 



The present specimen, of which the original and the counterpart 

 are preserved, comes from 2\ miles northwest of La Salvadora. 



Holotype.— Cut. No. 36443, U.S.N.M. 



59 Engelhardt, H., Abh. Senck. Naturf. Gesell., vol. 19, p. 32, pi. 5, fig. 9, 1895. 

 *> Berry, E. W., Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 55, p. 293, pi. 15, fig. 2, 1919. 



