E. W. Berry — New Genus of Fossil Fruit. 253 



further borne out by the smaller size of the Eocene form. 

 It may be described as follows : 



Calatoloides eocenicum gen. et sp. nov. 



Based on fruit, which, as restored from casts, is a mod- 

 erately prolate spheroid in form, 2.5 to 3 centimeters in 

 length and about 2.25 centimeters in diameter, broadly 

 rounded proximad and bluntly pointed distad. The 

 sclerotesta, which in life appears to have been covered by 

 a thin sarcotesta, is ligneous, and shows a characteristic 

 ornamentation similar to that of the fruits of the three 

 existing species of Calatola. It is marked by a somewhat 

 irregular, prominent, branching and anastomosing series 

 of longitudinal ridges and these are connected by low, 

 subordinate, irregularly transverse, ridges. If it was 

 like the existing Calatola it contained a single large seed. 

 The Panama specimen was' found in the sea drift on the 

 shore of Panama Bay, but the seed was dead and we know 

 nothing of the ability of the fruits of this genus to with- 

 stand journeys by sea, although the dry fruits appear to 

 be buoyant and impervious to sea water, so that ocean 

 currents may have been a factor in the distribution of the 

 Eocene ancestor. 



In shape and ornamentation there is no difference 

 between the Eocene and the existing species except that 

 the fruits of the extinct genus are only one-half the size 

 of those of the existing genus, and the transverse ridges 

 between the longitudinal ridges are less prominent in the 

 fossil. 



Any consideration of the origin and past distribution of 

 the members of this family must await a knowledge of its 

 fossil representatives, but it is not without great interest 

 that the exclusively Central American genus Calatola, not 

 recognized until 1921, should be represented by a closely 

 related form in the lower Eocene of northeastern Texas 

 in a flora, a large proportion of which I have regarded 

 as having spread northward into southeastern North 

 America from equatorial America during the emergent 

 interval which followed the withdrawal of the Upper 

 Cretaceous sea from that area. 



Johns Hopkins University, 

 Baltimore Md. 



