Berry — Nipa-palm in the North American Eocene. 59 



unite all of the Belgian forms, which according to Rutot 

 range from the etage Paniselien through the Brnxellien, 

 Laekenien and Wemmelien, under the single specific name of 

 Nipadites Burtini Brongniart (1849, p. 88). 



The foregoing is a brief resume of the previous discoveries 

 relating to Nipadites all of which have been confined to 

 Europe and Africa until the present time. During the past 

 summer, in company with Dr. E. JST. Lowe, State Geologist of 

 Mississippi, I collected fruits of Nipadites from a fossilif- 

 erous outcrop of clay of upper Wilcox age exposed near 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 1. Sketch-map showing the approximate distribution of the Nipa- 

 palm (solid black) and the Eocene occurrences of Nipadites. (1)= Missis- 

 sippi, (2)=London, Belgian and Paris basins, (3)=southern France and 

 northern Italy, (4) = southern Eussia, (5)=northern Egypt. 



Grenada in Grenada County, northern-central Mississippi. 

 Ever since I commenced working on the Wilcox flora, several 

 years ago, I have been on the lookout for Nipadites, which is 

 such a striking element in the Eocene northward extension of 

 tropical floras in Europe. Its discovery in America is of con- 

 siderable importance because of the certainty with which it 

 testifies to the physical conditions of the remote period when it 

 grew along the shores of the great Mississippi Eocene Gulf. 

 The American fruits cannot be separated from those of Nipa- 

 dites Burtini Brongniart to which they are referred as the 

 variety umhonatus of Bowerbank. They are obovate in out- 

 line with a narrowed truncated base and a broadly rounded 



