518 FOSSIL FRUITS OF PALMS. 
Fossil Fruits of Palms. 
Many fossil fruits of the Tertiary period be- 
long to the family of Palms, all of which, accord- 
ing to M. Ad. Brongniart, seem derived from 
Genera that have pinnated leaves. Several such 
fruits occur in the Tertiary clay of the Island of 
Sheppey ; among which are the Date,^ now pe- 
culiar to Africa and India ; the Cocoa-nut,t 
which grows universally within the tropics ; the 
Bactris, which is limited to America; and the 
Areca, which is found only in Asia. Not one of 
these can be referred to any flabelliform palm. 
Fossil Cocoa-nuts occur also at Brussels, and at 
Liblar near Cologne, together with fruits of the 
Areca. 
Although all these fruits belong to Genera 
whose leaves are pinnated, no fossil pinnated 
Palm leaves (as we have just stated), have yet 
been found in Europe. It seems therefore most 
likely, from the mode in which so large a number 
of miscellaneous fruits are crowded together in 
the Isle of Sheppey, mixed with marine shells 
and fragments of timber, almost always perfo- 
rated by Teredines, that the fruits in question 
were drifted by marine currents from a warmer 
* See Parkinson's Org. Rem. Vol. i. PI. VL fig. 4, 9. 
t See Parkinson's Org. Rem. Vol. i. PI. VII. fig. 1—5. 
M. Brongniart says, these fruits are undoubtedly of the Genus 
Cocos, neaK to Cocos lapidea, of Gsertner. 
