No. 2388. TERTIARY FOSSIL PLANTS FROM VENEZUELA— BERRY. 569 



Order ROSALES. 

 Family MIMOSACEAE. 



Genus ENTADA Adanson. 17 



ENTADA BOWENI Berry. 



Plate 109, fig. 1. 

 Entada boweni Berry, Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. 50, pp. 310-313, fig. 1, 1920. 



Seed of large size, about 5.25 cm. in diameter, lenticular in form, 

 reniform in surface view, and depressed elliptical in cross section. 

 The surface view would be almost perfectly circular except for the 

 pronounced sinus at the hilum. The sclerotest or hard lignified seed 

 coat is gone from the face of the specimen, exposing the thick reni- 

 form upper cotyledon. The inner face of the lower cotyledon is 

 shown in the upper left-hand corner of the specimen, where a portion 

 of the upper cotyledon is broken away. Where the two cotyledons 

 join, the hypocotyl or plumule is conspicuous, indicating the incipient 

 germination of the seed before it was finally buried by sediment. 

 The outer surface of the cotyledon is slightly furrowed as in the exist- 

 ing sea beau. The central area is somewhat collapsed exactly as 

 would be the case in the modern bean if the cotyledons were some- 

 what softened and the central air cavity upon which its buoyancy 

 depends had been collapsed by pressure. Around the greater part 

 of the edge of the seed the sclerotesta is preserved, being replaced by 

 what is presumably marcasite. This test is thick and about 3 mm. 

 in diameter around the edges of the seed. 



The single specimen was collected from dark shales overlying a 

 sandstone at Mesa Pablo, about 5 miles south, 84 degrees west, of 

 Escuque, on the south side of the Caus River, inland from Lake 

 Maracaibo. The age is Tertiary, but has not as yet been more 

 definitely determined. 



Holotype.— Cat, No. 36435 U.S.N.M. 



The counterpart of the specimen if present in the shale was not 

 collected, and I assume that it carried the face of the test and the 

 small fragment of the upper cotyledon which is missing. I have dis- 

 sected a number of seeds of the existing Entada scandens, and their 

 correspondence with, the fossil is most remarkable, the only observable 

 difference being the partially developed plumule or hypocotyl in the 

 fossil which, as I have suggested above, was probably due to germina- 

 tion. The cotyledons appear to have been infiltered with ferruginous 

 salts before they had time to decay, becoming flattened by the escape 

 of gas from the central intercotyledonary cavity. 



>' This is often made a synonym of Pusaclha Linnaeus, as for example by Tautert in Engler and Prantl 



