310 E. W. Berry — Fossil Sea Bean from Venezuela. 



Art. XXII. — A Fossil Sea Bean from Venezuela; by Ed- 

 waed W. Beeey. 



Geologists too frequently neglect opportunities for col- 

 lecting fossils and this lack of appreciation is especially 

 deplorable when working in remote parts of the world. 

 All the more credit is therefore due Mr. C. F. Bowen for 

 the fossil plants collected by him during a geological re- 

 connaissance in Venezuela during 1919. These will be the 

 subject of a subsequent contribution to the Proceedings 

 of the U. S. National Museum. Meanwhile I desire to 

 call particular attention to the remarkable fruit contained 

 in the collection representing the leguminous genus 

 Entada. It may be called in honor of the collector. 



Eritada boweni sp. nov. 



Seed of large size, about 5.25 cm. in diameter, reniform 

 in surface view and depressed elliptical in cross section. 

 The surface view would be almost perfectly circular except 

 for the pronounced sinus at the hilum. The sclerotest or 

 hard lignified seed-coat is gone from the face of the speci- 

 men exposing the thick reniform upper cotyledon. The 

 inner face of the lower cotyledon is shown in the upper 

 left hand corner of the specimen where a portion of the 

 upper cotyledon is broken away. Where the two cotyle- 

 dons join the plumule or hypocotyl is conspicuous, indi- 

 cating the incipient germination of the seed before it was 

 buried by sediment. The outer surface of the cotyledon 

 is slightly furrowed as in the existing sea bean. The cen- 

 tral area is slightly collapsed exactly as would be the case 

 in the modern bean if the cotyledons were somewhat soft- 

 ened and the central air cavity collapsed by pressure. 

 Around the greater part of the edge of the seed the scler- 

 otesta is preserved, being replaced by what is presumably 

 marcasite. This test is thick and about 3 mm. in diameter 

 around the edges. The specimen was collected from dark 

 shales overlying a sandstone at Mesa Pablo about five 

 miles south, 84° west of Escuque on the south side of the 

 Caus River, inland from Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela. 

 The age is Tertiary but has not as yet been more definitely 

 determined, although it is probably Miocene. 



The counterpart of the specimen if present in the shale 



