44 
time when the interglacial clays and silts of the Kootenay Valley 
were deposited; and, inasmuch as remains of any well defined 
species of Ficus would be accepted by all botanists as good 
evidence of a tropical or sub-tropical climate, the geologic im- 
portance of the specimen was at once appreciated. 
he generic ee of fossil ee can not always be 
rel as correct; bu ll-preserved remains of fruit are 
generally entirely satisfactory f the ic characters 
incl eatures that are strikingly characteristic and can 
consideration is probably the most perfect ever found in a fossil 
condition and is undoubtedly more complete in characteristic 
details than any heretofore recorded or described. 
Ficus interglacialis n. sp. 
Plates CLI and CLIII 
Fruit subglobose, striate, about 4 inch in ciearaoed apparently 
sessile in clusters, attached to a branch about /g inch in diameter 
7 or more inches in length 
Plate CLII shows the entire specimen natural size. _ Plate 
of the branch, the incurved apex, characteristic of Ficus, may be 
plainly seen, and on the exterior of the branch, in several places 
are more or less well defined indications of leaf scars. 
specimen is so remarkably well preserved that it might’ 
well be regarded as a 3g aes branch of one or another 
of certain living — such as F. tecolutensis Miq. from Mexico, 
or F. populoides Warb. es jas Willd. from the West 
Indies. In any event it is a closely allied to species of 
this general type. 
Only four extinct species of Ficus in fruit have heretofore been 
described, so far as I am aware, and these are all either detached 
or single specimens,‘ although some three hundred species, based 
‘Ficus protogaea Heer (non gener Lower Atané, Greenland. Fl. 
Foss. Arct. 3%: 108, ol. 30, f. 5-7. 1874; ‘Fruits of Ficus” Lesquereaux, Dakota 
