ARgT.19. MIOCENE PLANTS FROM SOUTHERN MEXICO—BERRY. 25 
six pairs, diverging from the midrib at angles of about 55°, curved, 
ascending, camptodrome. Tertiaries thin, usually well marked, 
arching along the margins, generally straight internally, forming 
with the intermediates from the midrib subparallel with the seconda- 
ries, an open isodiametric mesh, becoming percurrent distad. 
This species, which is represented by a half a dozen broken speci- 
mens is almost exactly like the leaves of the existing Crescentia 
cucurbitina Linnaeus, a small coastal tree which ranges from southern 
peninsular Florida through the Antilles, and from southern Mexico 
to Panama and Venezuela. This resemblance has suggested the 
specific name of the fossil. The genus has six or seven existing spe- 
cies and has not previously been recognized in the fossil state. It is 
confined to America between the latitudes of southern Florida and 
Brazil. 
Occurrence.—Isthmian railroad ? km. north of Palomares on the 
Saravia estate, State of Oaxaca. 
Holotype.—Cat. No. 36840, U.S.N.M. 
Genus BIGNONOIDES, new genus. 
Proposed for the winged seeds of any generically undeterminable 
member of this family. At present with the features of the single 
type species described below. 
BIGNONOIDES ORBICULARIS, new species. 
Plate 3, fig. 4. 
Seeds compressed, round in outline and lenticular in cross section, 
about 3 mm. in diameter; located at the center of a circular wing 
which is faintly and radially veined and has a more or less irregular 
margin, the whole about 1.25 cm. in diameter. 
A great many genera both in this and other families have super- 
ficially similar winged fruits. This is especially true of the family 
Malpighiaceae which is so largely developed in tropical America. None 
of these, so far as I know, have a central seed and continuous radial 
wing. On the other hand there are certain genera of the Bignonia- 
ceae, such as Callichlamys, Jacaranda, etc., in which some of the 
modern species have seeds like those of the fossil, which has influenced 
the present identification. The term for the present genus would 
preferably be Bignonites, but this has already been used by Saporta 
for a form from the Oligocene of Aix, afterward changed to Rhopalo- 
spermites and transferred to the Proteaceae. 
Among previously described fossil forms the only one deserving 
of mention is one from the Tertiary of the Loja basin in Ecuador 
which Engelhardt described * as Banisteria aceroides. This is very 
35 Engelhardt, H., Abh. Senck. Naturf. Gesell., vol. 19, p. 14, pl. 2, figs. 18, 19, 1895. 
