FOSSIL FLORA. 



PLATE VII. 

 Fossil Fruits of Palms. 



31 



Figs. 1—5. Splendid specimens of one of the most remarkable of the fossil fruits that occur 

 in the London clay of the Isle of Sheppey. The nut in its pericarp or husk is 

 shown in fig. 1, the separate pericarp in fig. 2, and the nut itself in fig. 3. Figs. 4 

 and 5, represent another beautiful fossil of the same species. 



These fossil fruits, which Mr. Parkinson considered as belonging to a species of Cocos, or 

 Cocoa, and M. Brongniart referred to the Pandanus or Screw-pine, Mr. Bowerbank has demon- 

 strated to be closely related to the recent Nipa, or Malucca Palm; a low shrub-like monocoty- 

 ledonous plant, that inhabits marshy tracts near the mouths of great rivers, particularly where 

 the waters are brackish. 



Mr. Bowerbank has figured and described eleven species. The species represented in this 

 plate is distinguished as Nipadites ParUnsonis : M. Brongniart had previously named it 



The following is Mr. Bowerbank's description of these fossils : — 



" The fruits of which the group I propose to name Nipadites is composed, are known among 

 the women and children by whom they are usually coUected, by the name of 'petrified figs.' 

 The epicarp and endocarp are thin and membranous; the sarcocarp is thick and pulpy, composed of 

 cellular tissue, through which run numerous bundles of vessels. The cells are about the yloth 

 part of an inch in diameter. Nearly in the centre of the pericarp is situated a large seed, which, 

 when broken, is found to be more or less hollow. It is frequently not more than half a line in 

 thickness ; but in perfect specimens it presents the appearance of a closely granulated structure, 

 in which small apertures containing carbonaceous matter occasionally occur. The seed in 

 Nipadites Parkinsonis, consists of regular layers of cells radiating from a spot situated near the 

 middle of the seed, and apparently enclosing a central embryo. 



" If the habits of the plants which produced these fossil fruits were similar to those of the 

 recent Nipa, it will account for their amazing abundance in the London Clay of the Isle of 

 Sheppey ; which formation, from the great variety of fossilized stems and branches, mixed 

 up Avith asteria, mollusca, and conchifera of numerous marine and fresh-water genera, is 

 strikingly characterized as having been the delta of an immense river, which probably flowed 

 from near the Equator towards the spot where these interesting remains are now deposited.'" 



Figs. 6, 7, & 8. Specimens of a seed-vessel, or nut, of an unknown plant, often found in the 

 strata of the coal measures. It is called Trigonocarpum olivceforme, from its general 

 shape. From Leicestershire ; it probably belongs to a plant of the Palm family. 



1 See an account of an " Excursion to the Isle of Sheppey," Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 897. 

 = History of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay. Van Voorst, London, 1840. 



