No. 238S. TERTIARY FOSSIL PLANTS FROM VENEZUELA— BERRY. 567 



Order RANALES. 

 Family ANONACEAE. 



Genus ANONA Linnaeus. 



ANONA GUPPYI, new species. 



Leaves of variable but mediumly large size, ovate in general out- 

 line, widest at or below the middle, narrowing slowly upward to the 

 obtuse tip, and more rapidly downward to the broadly cuneate base. 

 Length averaging between 12 cm. and 13 cm. Maximum width 

 ranging from 5.3 cm. to 6.2 cm., averaging about 6 cm. A single 

 specimen is somewhat inequilateral. Margins entire, very faintly 

 undulate in some specimens. Texture subcoriaceous. Petiole miss- 

 ing. Midrib stout, prominent on the lower surface of the leaf. 

 Secondaries remote, 10 to 12 pairs, diverging from the midrib at 

 wide angles of 60 to 70°, generally but slightly curved upward until 

 they approach the marginal region where they are camptodrome. 

 These leaves have all been mined by the aquatic larvae of insects, so 

 that the tertiary venation is much obscured. A few percurrent 

 nervilles are distinguishable. 



I have ventured to name this obviously new species in honor of 

 H. B. Guppy, whose enlightened researches have added so much to 

 our knowledge of the distribution of plants. 



The existing species of Anona, many of which are economically 

 valuable, number about 60, all of which are American except two 

 or three forms of Africa and tropical Asia. Several are widely culti- 

 vated in all tropical countries, and their original home has been a 

 matter of dispute, since the cultivation of some of the species probably 

 antedates the discovery of America. A. De Candolle, after his ex- 

 tended systematic studies of the Anonaceae, reached the conclusion 

 that Anona was of American origin and that the ancestors of the 

 cosmopolitan cultivated forms probably came from the West Indies 

 or from the neighboring part of the American mainland. This is 

 unquestionably true, not only of the cultivated forms, but of the 

 genus as a whole, since fossil species are recorded from the late Cre- 

 taceous and early Eocene of North America. 



The total number of known fossil forms is between 20 and 30. 

 Around the perimeters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean 

 there are four well-marked species in the lower Eocene of the Mis- 

 sissippi embayment region; an upper Eocene species in Texas; and 

 a Miocene species in Costa Rica. A species is known from the 

 Miocene of northern coastal Peru, two have been described from the 

 lower Miocene of southern Chile, and there is a species in the Pliocene 

 of Bolivia. 



