42 BULLETIN 103, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Diospyros is cosmopolitan in the existing flora with about 180 

 species in the warmer regions of both hemispheres. Mostly Oriental, 

 but not uncommon in the southern United States, Antilles, and from 

 Mexico through tropical South America. Upward of 100 fossil spe- 

 cies are known ranging in age from the Upper Cretaceous to the 

 present. 



Occurrence. — Section near mouth of Tonosi River, in deposits of 

 Eocene age (MacDonald). 



Type.— Cat. No. 35316, U.S.N.M. 



Order RUBIALES. 



Family RUBIACEAE. 



Genus RONDELETIA Plumier. 



RONDELETIA GOLDMANI, new species. 



Plate 18, fig. 3. 



Description. — Leaves lanceolate in outline, somewhat falcate and 

 inequilateral, with an equally acuminate apex and base. Length be- 

 tween 12 cm. and 13 cm. Maximum width, midway between the apex 

 and the base, about 3 cm., 13.5 mm. on the concave side and 15.5 mm. 

 on the convex side. Margins entire. Texture coriaceous. Petiole 

 short and stout, expanded proximad, about 5 mm. long. Midrib 

 curved, stout, and prominent. Secondaries thin, numerous, suboppo- 

 site to alternate, rather regularly spaced ; about 15 pairs diverge from 

 the midrib at angles of about 45° and ascend in rather flat but regular 

 and subparallel curves and are camptodrome in the marginal region. 

 Tertiaries obsolete. 



This well-marked species is referred to the subfamily Cinchonoideae 

 and tribe Rondeletieae and seems to indicate an Oligocene species of 

 'Rondeletia, a genus of shrubs and trees confined to tropical America 

 and not heretofore found fossil. Rondeletia has about 70 existing spe- 

 cies, a few of which occur in northern South America, but the ma- 

 jority are confined to the Antilles (45 species) and Central America 

 (24 species). 1 The present species may be compared with the exist- 

 ing Rondeletia racemosa Swartz of Jamaica, and with other Antillean 

 and Central American forms. More remote comparisons may be 

 made with certain species of Psychotria, as, for example, Psychotria 

 barbiflora De Candolle of Brazil, and with the genus TapiHa Jus- 

 sieu of the Anacardiaceae, a fossil species of which, Tapiria lanceo- 

 lata, has been described by Engelhardt 2 from the Tertiary of Ecua- 



1 Britton records 35 species from Cuba. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, vol. 44, pp. 20-30, 1917. 



2 Engelhardt, H., tJber neue Tertiarpflanzen Sud-Amerikas, Abh. Senck. Naturf. Gesell., 

 vol. 19, p. 15, pi. 9, fig. 4, 1895. 



