218 

 A NEW CRETACEOUS BAUHINIA* 



By Edward W. Berry 



The genus Bauhinia Linne of the Caesalpiniaceae has upwards 

 of one hundred and fifty species in the modern flora with repre- 

 sentatives in the tropics of America, Asia, Africa, and AustraHa. 

 A fossil species based on leaf remains from the Tortonian or Upper 

 Miocene deposits of OEningen, Baden, was described by Heer as 

 long ago as i859.t Soon afterward Unger in his Sylloge plan- 

 tarwn fossilhim described two additional species, J both based on 

 pods, from Croatia. The discovery of a handsome species in the 

 much older Cretaceous deposits of New Jersey was made the 

 occasion of an interesting communication to the Torrey Botani- 

 cal Club by Professor Newberry in 1886 § and this and another 

 larger species were subsequently fully described and illustrated 

 in his monograph of the Amboy clay flora. || Meanwhile Unger 

 had described a species from the Aquitanian of Kumi on the is- 

 land of Euboea off" the eastern coast of Greece Tf and Velenovsky 

 had described a leaf from the Cenomanian of Bohemia under the 

 name o{ Phyllites bipartitus'^''^ which he considered as a probably 

 abnormal leaf of Hedera primordialis Saporta but which as New- 

 berry suggested is almost certainly another species of Bauhinia 

 (/. c. 1896), and more closely related to the existing oriental species 

 than to those of America. 



Quite recently the writer discovered Newberrj^'s Bauhinia 

 cretaceain collections from the Tuscaloosa formation of Alabama, 

 and from higher levels in the same formation a large and ornate 

 leaf of a new species belonging to this genus. 



The occasion for this brief note, however, is the discovery of 



* Published by permission of the Maryland Geological Survey, 

 t Heer, Fl. Tert. Helv. 3 : 109. //. 1J4. f. 21. 1859. 

 % Unger, Sylloge 2 : 31. //. //. / 2, j. 1862. 

 \ Newberry, Bull. Torrey Club 13 : 77, 78. //. 56. 1886. 



II Newberry, Mon. U. .S. Geol. Surv. 26 : 91, 93. //. 20. f. i ; pi. 4j. f. 1-4; 

 pi. 44. f. 1-3. 1896. 



•[Unger, Foss. Fl. v. Kumi, 61. //. /j. / j6. 1867. 



** Velenovsky, Fl. bohm. Kreidef. 4 : 12. //. 6./. 4. 1885. 



