32 
Rocky thicket, Fairfield, Parish of Manchester, Jamaica, 
September 3—7, 1909 (Britton 3147). 
In Mr. Wernham's arrangement this comes next to H. ventri- 
cosa Sw., and is, in fact, nearest related to that species, which has 
different foliage, larger corolla and much smaller seeds. 
The leaves of H. scabrida are quite as papillose as those of H. 
papillosa Urban of the Jamaica Cockpit Country, which has 
very much smaller flowers and globose fruits over 1 cm. in 
diameter. 
FOSSIL FLOWERS AND FRUITS.—II 
By T. D. A. COCKERELL 
The genus Robinia was formerly distributed over the Palae- 
arctic region, as shown by a number of well-preserved fossils in 
the European Tertiary. A species (R. arvernensis Laurent) 
flourished in south-central France as late as the ‘‘Mio-pliocene.”’ 
Probably the genus died out in Europe during the glacial period. 
At the present time conditions are well suited to R. pseudacacia, 
which has run wild extensively. In America, we have a species 
(К. Brittoni СКП.) from the Florissant Miocene but it might 
have been supposed that the genus was really of Old World origin, 
and came over to America in Miocene times. Such an idea 
seems to be negatived by the discovery of pods of an apparently 
genuine Robinia in the Laramie Cretaceous. 
Robinia mesozoica n. sp. 
Pods of the same size and general appearance as those of the 
modern R. pseudacacia L.; base moderately tapering; apex with 
a short oblique point but otherwise rather obtuse; breadth of a 
large pod 14 mm., of a smaller but apparently mature one 10; 
wing-margin very distinct, nearly 3 mm. broad in the larger pod; 
seeds placed almost transversely, the obliquity very slight, as 
in the modern R. pseudacacia. Neither pod shows the whole 
length. ; 
Collected by Mr. N. E. Hinds in sandstone, south side of a 
yellow cliff a few miles north of Whitely Peak, which is about 
