128 STUDIES IN GEOLOGY, No. 4 



Order MALVALES 



Family TILIACE^E 



Genus TRIUMFSTTA Linne 



Triumfetta miocenica Berry, sp. rx>v. 



PLATE IV Fig. 5 



Leaves broadly ovate and somewhat inequilateral in gen- 

 eral outline, widest below the middle, and narrowing upward 

 to the acuminate tip. Base rounded. Margins evenly 

 serrate, fuller on one side and straighter on the other. Mid 

 rib stout. Secondaries about 5 opposite to alternate campto- 

 drome pairs, the basal pair stoutest and somewhat more 

 ascending than the others and giving off on the outside a 

 series of carnptodrome tertiaries. Remaining tertiaries per- 

 current. Length about 8 cm. Maximum width about 4.75 

 cm. 



This species, obviously new, greatly resembles a number 

 of existing species of Triumfetta of the South American 

 tropics. It is, unfortunately represented by a scanty amount 

 of material from, the mine dumps at Lota. It is referred to 

 the genus Triumfetta with considerable hesitation and it 

 would, perhaps, have been better to describe it as a species 

 of Grewiopsis and consider the latter genus as the original 

 and more or less cosmopolitan stock from which the differ- 

 ent existing members of the subfamily Grewiese were derived. 

 The existing species of Grewia, upward of 100 in number and 

 very similar to the present fossil are all old world forms of 

 Africa, Asia and Australia. The existing species of Trium- 

 fetta, about three score in number, are herbs or shrubs of 

 the tropics of both hemispheres, and undoubtedly derived 

 from Grewiopsis like ancestors, as is indicated not only 

 by their characteristics but by their geographical distribution, 

 and the reduction in size and herbaceous form of many of 

 them. The genus is practically unrecognized in the fossil 

 state, although a second species has been described from 

 these same beds by Engelhardt. 



