302 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. 48. 



Order POLEMONIALES. 

 Family BIGNONIACEAE. 



Genus TECOMA Jussieu. 



TECOMA PRERADICANS, new species. 



Plate 13, figs. 1-5. 



Leaves odd pinnate, not tendril bearing, of five or more sessile leaf- 

 lets. No complete leaves have been found, but from the small size of 

 the basal pair of leaflets in specimens showing five leaflets it seems 

 safe to assume that the normal number was from five to seven. Leaf- 

 lets lanceolate to ovate or obovate in outline, ranging from 2 cm. to 

 7 cm. in length and from 1 cm. to 4.5 cm. in maximum width. Ter- 

 minal leaflet equilateral, the base decurring to a pseudo-petiolule. 

 Lateral leaflets slightly inequilateral. Bases and tips about equally 

 pointed. Margins entire for about one-third of the distance upward; 

 above this they are beset with somewhat irregular, prominent, 

 upwardly directed serrate teeth. Midribs relatively stout. Second- 

 aries stout, numerous; about nine opposite to alternate pairs diverge 

 from the midrib at angles averaging about 45°, curving slightly upward, 

 almost regularly spaced, subparallel and craspedodrome. 



The present species is similar to the existing Tecoma radicans in 

 general appearance, and specimens collected by Glenn at Hickman 

 were identified by Knowlton 1 as this species or something near it. It 

 differs from the existing species in the fewer leaflets, the latter species 

 having usually 9 to 13, and extended search has not brought to light 

 leaves with fewer than seven leaflets. Other differences shown by 

 the fossil are its smaller and more close-set marginal teeth, the tend- 

 ency of the leaflets to assume an obovate outline, and the absence of 

 the produced acumen that characterizes the leaflets of the trumpet- 

 creeper. The secondaries are also more uniformly craspedodrome 

 in the fossil form. 



Tecoma preradicans occurs at both the Columbus and Hickman 

 Bluffs, being exceedingly common at the latter locality. The genus 

 Tecoma consists of about 80 species of the Temperate and Tropical 

 Zones of both hemispheres. They are massed in the Brazilian region. 

 Two species extend into the United States. One of these, T. starts, 

 made the type of the genus Stenolobium Don by Small, ranges from 

 Florida to Mexico and tropical America, the other, T. radicans, made 

 the type of the genus Campsis Loureiro by Small, ranges northward to 

 southern New Jersey along the Atlantic coast and to southern Illinois 

 in the Mississippi Valley. 



1 In Glenn, Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, No. 164, p. 38. 



