E. W. Berry — New Genus of Fossil Fruit. 251 



Akt. XXI. — A New Genus of Fossil Fruit; by Edward W. 



Berry. 



Several families of the order Sapindales, which con- 

 tains about 20 families and over 3,000 existing species, are 

 abundantly represented in the geological record. This is 

 notably true in the case of the families Sapindacea?, Ilica- 

 cea?, Celastracea?, and Anacardiacea?, which are also the 

 largest existing families of this order. 



A family that has not heretofore been recognized in the 

 fossil state is the Icacinacea?. In the existing flora this 

 family consists of about 40 genera and 150 species, of 

 which only 8 genera with less than 30 species are found in 

 the Western Hemisphere, where they are, for the most 

 part, confined to the tropics. None of these American 

 genera except Mappia is found in any other continental 

 region, and in this genus the American forms are grouped 

 in the sub-genus Eumappia and confined to the Antillean 

 region, and the Asiatic forms are segregated in the sub- 

 genus Trichocrater and confined to the region between 

 Ceylon and Farther India. It seems very probable that 

 these two sub-genera are not directly filiated but exhibit 

 convergent characters resulting from similar modifica- 

 tions of unlike ancestors. 



The family is distinctly oriental at the present time, 

 and makes its greatest display around the borders of the 

 Indian Ocean, and its present representation in Africa on 

 the West and Australia on the East suggests an Asiatic 

 ancestry, with migrations from that region southwest- 

 ward over the now submerged Gondwana bank, and south- 

 eastward through the East Indian region. For example, 

 although there is only a single monotypic genus in addi- 

 tion to Trichocrater confined to Asia, there are 15 genera 

 with over 60 species found in the region extending from 

 southeastern Asia to Australia, and 3 genera with 20 

 species common to Asia and Africa. Africa has 10 gen- 

 era and about 35 species confined to that continent, and 

 Australia has 3 endemic genera with about 6 species. 



There is only a single monotypic genus in northern 

 South America, and there are at least nine such in the Old 

 "World, Three are African, one is Asian, two are East 

 Indian, one is confined to Xew Guinea, and two are con- 



