TORREYA 



March, 1915. 

 Vol. 15 No. 3 



A SPECIES OF COPAIFERA FROM THE TEXAS EOCENE 



By Edward W. Berry 



The determination of the fossil remains of leaflets or even of 

 the pods of a large proportion of the Leguminosae is attended 

 with great difficulty because of their convergent character in 

 so many of the numerous genera. It is therefore all the more 

 important to call attention to unequivocal fossil forms such as 

 the pod of a new species of the genus Copaifera described in the 

 present note. This form also happens to be the oldest known 

 representative of this genus as well as the first fossil record from 

 North America, and to that extent suggestive of the place of 

 origin of the genus and something of its geological history. 



The genus Copaifera belongs to the tribe Cynometreae of the 

 family Caesalpiniaceae and comprises about sixteen existing 

 species of the equatorial region of Africa and America, ranging 

 in the latter region from the West Indies to the valley of the 

 Amazon. Four of the species are African and the balance are 

 American. They are large trees with hard durable wood and 

 yield the gum or balsam known as Copaiba. The latter term 

 was proposed as the generic name for these trees by Miller and 

 it is often substituted for the Linnaean name Copaifera, as for 

 example by Taubert in Engler and Prantl's Naturlichen Pflanzen- 

 familien. 



The present species may be characterized as follows: 



Copaifera yeguana sp. nov. 



Pods of relatively small size, short and broadly elliptical in 

 outline, greatly compressed and smooth surfaced, pedunculate, 

 somewhat obliquely mucronate tipped, two valved, tardily if at 



[No. 2, Vol. IS, of ToRREYA, Comprising pp. 21-40, was issued 11 March 1915] 



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