Ficus” fructus pedicellata Berry, 1930

Na, Yuling, Blanchard, Jane & Wang, Hongshan, 2019, Fruits, seeds and flowers from the Puryear clay pit (middle Eocene Cockfield Formation), western Tennessee, USA, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 49) 23 (3), pp. 1-57 : 44

“ Ficus” fructus pedicellata Berry, 1930

Figure 59

1930 “ Ficus” fructus pedicellata Berry , p. 66, pl. 48, fig. 8.

Description. Pedicellate fruit ca. 7.5–10 mm wide and 7–10 mm high; Apex attenuate. Pedicel ca. 2.5 cm long and 0.5 mm wide; receptacle ca. 2 mm in diameter.

Number of specimens examined. 2. UF15820- 059484, 061125.

Remarks. Berry (1930, p. 66, pl. 48, figure 8) described one specimen from the Puryear locality and assigned it to a fossil species in the extant genus Ficus . It is larger (8 mm long and up to 10 mm wide) and has two bracts at the base. The surface of Berry’s specimens is “minutely tuberculated,” whereas the Puryear specimens are not. The attenuate apex may represent a persistent style. We treat these three specimens as the same type and retain Berry’s species epithet, but place quotation marks on the generic name to indicate that the assignment of the fossil species to the extant genus is incorrect.

Figures

FIGURE 59. “Ficus” fructus pedicellata Berry, 1930: 1) UF15820- 059484, a smaller fruit with an attenuate apex, a receptacle (indicated by arrow) and a long pedicel; 2) UF15820-061125, a larger fruit with a receptacle (indicated by arrow) and an incomplete pedicel. All scale bars equal 3 mm.