MIOCENE FOSSIL PLANTS FROM NORTHERN PERU, 



By Edward W. BERRr, 

 Of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The present brief paper is based upon a small collection of fossil 

 plants recently received in exchange from the Boston Society of Nat- 

 ural History through the courtesy of Dr. Joseph A. Cushman, and 

 presented by me to the United States National Museum. This col- 

 lection was made by C. F. Winslow early in the year 1875, and in an 

 interesting letter dated the 3d of March of that year he states that it 

 was made from a clay lens overlying a bed of lignite in the petroleum- 

 bearing sands about 20 miles south of the town and river of Tumbcz, 

 and 200 or 300 feet inland from the shore of the Pacific. 



In spite of the lack of geological work or satisfactorily accurate 

 maps of this region it is fortunately possible to locate this plant bear- 

 ing outcrop with sufficient precision to show that it is very near to, 

 if not identical with, the locality from which the described section 

 quoted on a subsequent page was made. The foliage of a luxuriantly 

 wooded region was evidently accumulated in shallow pools, possibly 

 continental, but more probably lagoonal in character, which season- 

 ally, if not for longer intervals, received only very fine muddy sedi- 

 ments. The leaves are consequently in matted layers, with only thin 

 films of mud between them, and hence no one except an experienced 

 collector could be expected to obtain satisfactory material for study. 



While the collection described in the following pages leaves much 

 to be desired from the point of view of the correct botanical deter- 

 mination of the species, Mr. Winslow deserves great credit for his in- 

 terest and for the enterprise with which he succeeded in preserving 

 this material and thus bringing to light this page of geological his- 

 tory, and I can onl}^ hope that he is still alive and may see this belated 

 appreciation of his efforts of over 40 years ago. 



From the standpoint of the systematic botanist the present study 

 is far from satisfactory, and the difficulty of identifying such frag- 

 mentary material has led me to accept the determinations of previous 

 workers on the paleobotany of South America without attempting 

 to revise their generic references, although I am fully conscious that 

 some at least of these are faulty. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 55— No. 2270. 



279 



