422 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [DECEMBER 
The fossil species throughout the world have mostly been 
referred to Aralia or Hedera, and are comparable for the most 
part with the existing species of the Araliaceae as a whole, rather 
than with these respective genera. Beside these two genera, 
various fruits from the Atane and Patoot beds of Greenland, and 
from the Miocene of Europe, have been referred to Panax; 
Unger identifies a species of Cussonia from the Miocene (Kumi) 
of Greece, Velenvosky another from the Cenomanian of Bohemia, 
and Nathorst a species of Acanthopanax from the Pliocene of 
Japan. Some 44 species of Aralia leaves have been identified 
from American strata, ranging from the Potomac formation 
upward through the Miocene. Numerous analogues of these 
American species have been described in Europe, as well as five 
species which are identical. Thus Aralia coriacea Velen., occurs 
in the Cenomanian of Bohemia and at Marthas Vineyard ; Avalia 
transversinervia Sap. & Mar. occurs at Gelinden and has been 
reported from Long Island ; Avalia formosa Heer occurs at Mole- 
tein and in the Bohemian Cretaceous as well as in the Dakota 
group and Raritan formation; Aralia Zaddachi Heer of the Baltic 
Oligocene occurs in the Californian Miocene; and Aralia Looztana 
Sap. & Mar. of the Gelinden flora reappears in the Fort Union 
group. 
The genus is well represented both in the Cretaceous and 
Tertiary of Europe, Schimper in his Paléontologie Végétale (1874) 
listing 34 species, mostiy, from European localities. 
Heer describes two species from the Tertiary of Siberia, a 
simple leaflet and a lobed leaf of the A. Saportana type; while 
Ettingshausen notes the occurrence of Aralia in the Tertiary of 
Australasia. Many of these fossil species have merely a paleo- 
botanical value. Thus Newberry identifies seven species at the 
single Raritan horizon of Woodbridge, N. J., four of which are 
described for the first time by him.” Still another Raritan species 
is Heer’s Avalia formosa, which occurs in the upper layers at 
South Amboy,N.J. It is quite possible that Newberry’s A. poly- 
morpha, groenlandica, patens, palmata, and rotundiloba are all the 
varied leaves of a single species. In the Matawan formation, 
* Flora of the Amboy clays. 1896, 
