66 BERRY: FOSSIL FRUITS FROM THE ANDES OF COLOMBIA 
the Pacific coast of Central America suggests an American origin 
for the family, and that the single west African coastal species 
reached that region either by means of the equatorial counter 
current, or before the continental outlines had assumed their 
present form. 
Order POLEMONIALES 
Family BORAGINACEAE 
Genus CorpiA Linné 
Cordia vera sp. nov. 
Fics, I-19 
Fruit a more or less elongated drupe with a thin flesh, which 
is not over I mm. thick as lignified; the interior filled ‘with a 
relatively large woody stone. Stones varying considerably in 
s $s a 
truncated proximad and somewhat narrowed and rounded distad. 
They are slightly compressed by pressure during iyo gig ete and 
are frequently somewhat curved but whether the last natural 
or assumed feature cannot be determined. The sateen! of the 
stone is faintly and shallowly longitudinally sulcate; the walls 
are thick an ere are from one to four long seed- cavities 
somewhat reniform in cross section when not distorted by pres- 
sure. Slate Fo but one is abortive, more frequently two or 
three are abortive. Dimensions ranging from 6 x 4 mm. in the 
small . pr aeehio forms, which are far ie common than the 
more elongated forms, toI4 X 5mm. in the neath Average ofa 
great ey one slightly under the maximum dimensions. 
The number of unrelated dnipaceous, genera with 
fruits miescialty ee the fossils, inti in the families 
Rubiaceae and Boraginaceae. Many somewhat similar stones 
are only Hugieeelied Omen like thes rather similar stones of 
the genus Chomelia (Rubiaceae) are two-celled. 
The genus Guettarda of the Rubiaceae has stones with from 
four to nine cells, but these are less elongated than the fossils. 
There is naturally very little available material of recent species 
for comparison. Among this the fossils agree remarkably with 
the one- to four-celled stones of the genus Cordia. I am unable 
to point out the most closely related existing species of Cordia, 
since the majority of the species are not represented by fruiting 
material in the larger herbaria, but there can be no doubt but 
that the fossils represent a late Tertiary species of this genus. 
