43 



of the Rocky Mountain province or the Lutetian stage of the 

 Paris basin. 



The genus Copaifera has been recognized in the fossil state 

 for over half a century, Unger in 1862 having described in the 

 second part of his Sylloge, a pod of this genus from the Aquitanian 

 of Greece (Kumi)* and a second pod and leaflets from the Miocene 

 of Croatia. t Additional species were subsequently described by 

 Unger, J Saporta§ and Engelhardt,|| some based on leaflets and 

 others on pods. Ettingshausen^j in 1886 described some leaflets 

 from the early Tertiary of Australia as a new species of Copaifera, 

 but his material was limited and entirely uncharacteristic, and 

 there is no evidence* that the genus was ever present in either 

 Australia or Asia. 



The probable origin and geological history of the genus may 

 now be briefly sketched. The Texas form, which is a member of 

 a tropical flora that spread northward from the American tropics 

 along the shores of the middle Eocene Mississippi embayment, 

 is the oldest known form. At about the same time or slightly 

 later the genus is known from Engelhardt's studies (op. cit.) to 

 have extended southward into Chili far beyond its modern 

 range. From these facts I would conclude that it had its origin 

 in the equatorial region of America. From America it spread to 

 western Africa, possibly across what is now the south Atlantic. 

 As I have pointed out in another place** there are a considerable 

 number of genera with existing species in the tropics of West 

 Africa and America, old genera that are present in the lower 

 Eocene of the Mississippi embayment. They unite in indicating 

 an equatorial or subequatorial avenue of communication in the 

 early Tertiary, possibly to be correlated with the worldwide 

 emergence of the continents predicated by DeLapparent as 

 occurring during the Oligocene.ff 



* Unger, F., Sylloge plantarum fossilium, 2: 32. pi. 11. f. jo. 1862. 

 t Unger, F., Ibidem, /. 4-9, 11. 



t Unger, F., Foss. Fl. v. Parschlug, 154. pi. 3- /■ i3- 1869. 

 § Saporta, G. de, Etudes, 2: 375. pi. 13. f. 14. 1866. 



II Engelhardt, H., Abh. Senck. Naturf. Gesell., 16, pt. 4: 681. pi. 5. /. 8; pi. r.f. 

 4, 1891. 



^ Berry, E. W., Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. 53: 129-250. 1914. 



** Ettingshausen, C. von, Tertiarfl. Aust. 2: 56. pi. 15- /• 23, 23a. 1886. 



tt Traite. 1547. 1906. 



