﻿26 BULLETIN 103, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



palm wood in our Gulf region is confined to the Jackson or Vicks- 

 burg groups. 



The island of Antigua, celebrated for at least a century for its 

 petrified woods, has furnished at least seven species of petrified 

 palms, five of which were known to Unger as early as 1850, and one 

 was figured by Witham in 1833. These also are of Oligocene age. 

 There are two additional Oligocene species described from the West 

 Indies without definite information as to exact locality, and there 

 is also a species from Trinidad and another from Cuba. The Oligo- 

 cene species at present known from the southern United States are 

 seven in number, four of which have not been found outside of that 

 region, while one or possibly two are common to Antigua, and a third 

 has been reported by Felix from Southern Mexico. 



Occurrence. — Cucuracha formation, green clays, Gaillard Cut (loc. 

 6586). Collected by D. F. MacDonald. 



Collection. — U. S. National Museum, Cat. No. 35310. 



Order URTICALES. 



Family MORACEAE. 

 Genus FICUS Linnaeus. 



FICUS CULEBRENSIS, new species. 



Plate 13, fig. 1. 



Description. — Leaves of relatively small size, broadly oblong- 

 lanceolate in general outline, apex acute but not extended or cuspi- 

 date. Base bluntly pointed. Margins evenly rounded. Texture 

 coriaceous. Length about 8 cm. Maximum width, in the middle 

 part of the leaf, about 2.15 cm. Petiole short, stout, and curved. 

 Midrib stout and prominent on the under surface of the leaf. Sec- 

 ondaries thin, very numerous, evenly spaced, subparallel; they di- 

 verge from the midrib at wide angles averaging about 75 degrees, 

 23ursue an almost straight outward course, their ends being con- 

 nected well within the margins by regular flat arches formed by 

 their abrupt camptodrome endings. Tertiaries obsolete. 



This is an especially well-marked species of the lanceolate leafed 

 section of Ficus, and it may be matched by a number of still exist- 

 ing species found in the American tropics. Among such a large 

 number of both existing and fossil forms detailed comparisons are 

 not especially pertinent. Two comparisons that seem significant are 

 the resemblance of the present form to Ficus newtonensis Berry of the 

 Upper Claiborne of the Mississippi embayment and to the forms from 

 the Sannoisian of Haering in the Tyrol which Ettingshausen ^ refers 



1 Ettingshausen, Tert. Fl. von Haering, p. 41, pi. 10, flgs. 6, 8, 1853. 



