This family of Plants seems destined, like the Cocoa nut Palm, to be among the first vegetable Colonists of new lands just emerging from the ocean; they are found together almost universally by navigators on the rising Coral islands of tropical seas. We have just been considering the history of the fossil.stems of Cycadeæ in the Isle of Portland, from which we learn that Plants of that now extra-European family were natives of Britain, during the period of the Oolite formation. The unique and beautiful fossil fruit represented in our figures (Plate 63, Figs. 2, 3, 4,) affords probable evidence of the existence of another tropical family nearly allied to the Pandaneæ at the commencement of the great Oolitic series in the Secondary formations.[1]
In structure this fossil Fruit approaches nearer to Pandanus than to any other living plant, and viewing the peculiarities of the fruit of Pandaneæ[2] in connexion with the office
- ↑ This fossil was found by the late Mr. Page, of Bishport near Bristol, in the lower region of the Inferior Oolite formation on the E. of Charmouth, Dorset, and is now in the Oxford Museum. The size of this Fruit is that of a large orange, its surface is occupied by a stellated covering or Epicarpium, composed of hexagonal Tubercles, forming the summits of cells, which occupy the entire circumference of the fruit. (Figs. 2, a. 3, a. 4, a. 8, a.)
Within each cell is contained single seed, resembling a small grain of Rice more or less compressed, and usually hexagonal, Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. Where the Epicarpium is removed, the points of the seeds are seen, thickly studded over the surface of the fruit, (Fig. 2, 3, e.) The Bases of the cells (Fig. 3 and 10 c.) are separated from the receptacle, by a congeries of foot-stalks (d) formed of a dense mass of fibres, resembling the fibres beneath the base of the seeds of the modern Pandanus (Fig. 13, 14, 15, d.) As this position of the seeds upon foot-stalks composed of long rigid fibres, at a distance from the receptacle, is a character that exists in no other family than the Pandaneæ, we are hereby enabled to connect our fossil fruit with this remarkable tribe of plants, as a new genus, Podocarya. I owe the suggestion of this name, and much of my information on this subject, to the kindness of my friend, Mr. Robert Brown.
- ↑ The large spherical fruit of Pandanus, hanging on its parent tree is represented at Pl. 63, Fig. 1. Fig. 11 is the summit of one of the many Drupes into which this fruit is usually divided. Each cell when not barren contains single oblong slender seed; the cells in each drupe vary
