A Pictorial Atlas of Fossil Remains, consisting of coloured illustrations selected from Parkinson's "Organic remains of a former world," and Artis's "Antediluvian phytology."

by Gideon Algernon Mantell

PLATE VII.

Fossil Fruits of Palms.

Figs. 1-5. Splendid specimens of one of the most remarkable of the fossil fruits that occur in the London clay of the Isle of Sheppey. The nut in its pericarp or husk is shown in fig. 1, the separate pericarp in fig. 2, and the nut itself in fig. 3. Figs. 4 and 5, represent another beautiful fossil of the same species.

These fossil fruits, which Mr. Parkinson considered as belonging to a species of Cocos, or Cocoa, and M. Brongniart referred to the Pandanus or Screw-pine, Mr. Bowerbank has demonstrated to be closely related to the recent Nipa, or Malucca Palm; a low shrub-like monocotyledonous plant, that inhabits marshy tracts near the mouths of great rivers, particularly where the waters are brackish.

Mr. Bowerbank has figured and described eleven species. The species represented in this plate is distinguished as Nipadites Parkinsonis: M. Brongniart had previously named it Pandanocarpum Parkinsonis.[13]

[13] See an account of an "Excursion to the Isle of Sheppey," Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 897.

The following is Mr. Bowerbank's description of these fossils:—

"The fruits of which the group I propose to name Nipadites is composed, are known among the women and children by whom they are usually collected, by the name of 'petrified figs.' The epicarp and endocarp are thin and membranous; the sarcocarp is thick and pulpy, composed of cellular tissue, through which run numerous bundles of vessels. The cells are about the ⁸/₁₀₀th part of an inch in diameter. Nearly in the centre of the pericarp is situated a large seed, which, when broken, is found to be more or less hollow. It is frequently not more than half a line in thickness; but in perfect specimens it presents the appearance of a closely granulated structure, in which small apertures containing carbonaceous matter occasionally occur. The seed in Nipadites Parkinsonis, consists of regular layers of cells radiating from a spot situated near the middle of the seed, and apparently enclosing a central embryo.

"If the habits of the plants which produced these fossil fruits were similar to those of the recent Nipa, it will account for their amazing abundance in the London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey; which formation, from the great variety of fossilized stems and branches, mixed up with asteria, mollusca, and conchifera of numerous marine and fresh-water genera, is strikingly characterized as having been the delta of an immense river, which probably flowed from near the Equator towards the spot where these interesting remains are now deposited."[14]