ELEPHANTS, Fossil. The present genus (or genera) of elephant had many now extinct representatives in the Pleistocene. Among these the best known is the hairy mammoth (q.v.) of Siberia and northern North America. The mammoth was smaller than the largest existing elephants, but a similar species, Elephas columbs, ranging over the entire United States, equalled the extant species in size. E. imperator from the Southwest stood even larger, being 13 feet high at the shoulder. Another Pleistocene elephant was Mastodon Americanus. This differed from the true elephants in its lower skull and breast like molar teeth, of which several were in simultaneous use in each side of each jaw. The teeth were covered with enamel, but had no cement on the crowns. Straight traces of tusks remained in the lower jaw of the males. The Pliocene beds contain, besides several species of Mastodon, the genus Stegodon, with the molar teeth intermediate in character between those of Elephas and of Mastodon. In the Miocene the interesting genus Comphoterium or Tetra beladon is found. The skull resembles that of Mastodon, but is much lower and flatter. The mandibular symphysis is prolonged and bears the well-developed tusks. Upper and lower tusks alike are relatively short and banded with enamel. The molars have four cross ridges in the later forms, three in the earlier ones. The height at the shoulder is less than six feet.
The body and limbs have their present structure. The next earlier form in the line of ascent was Palizomaatodon from thz. lower Oligocene and upper Eocene of Egypt. The dentition was 1 0 3 3 - , c- p-, m - Both lower and upper tusks 0' 2 3' were very short and banded with enamel. All the grinders were in use together. There ixas probably a snout more or less like that of a pig instead of a well-developed trunk. The lower jaw was longer than the upper. 'The occipital bones extended nearly to the top of the parietals. There was a third trochanter on the femur. The size varied between that of a small elephant and that of a tapir. There is a considerable gap between Palcromastodon and any known ancestral form, but it appears that Mceritherium of the middle Eocene of Egypt is not ver far removed from its line of descent. Mceritherium has the dental formula 3 1 3 3 - p-,m - Both first and third upper 2' 0' 3 3' incisors and the canines are very poorly de veloped; the second upper and lower incisors form short tusks. The molars are quadrituber
cular. The skull is quite unlike that of Palaeo mastodon and is long and narrow, with enor mous check bones. The cranial capacity is relatively large. There appears to have been only a very slight trace of a trunk. The body was essentially like that of the elephants, though less specialized. An aberrant offshoot of the proboscidean stock is characterized by the pos session of tusks in the lower jaw only. This offshoot, containing the genus Dinotherium, is quite like typical elephants in its body and limbs. The tusks point downward and are curved to the rear. The molars resemble those of the tapirs. The skull is low and flat and probably bore a trunk. (See MAtt MOTH ; MasronoN). Consult Andrews, C. W., (Catalogue of Ter tiary Vertebrata of the Fayiim, Egypt) ; Scott, W. B., (A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere) (New York 1913).
a name frequently given to plants of the genus Begonia (q.v.). It is applied more frequently to a plant bearing the name Caladium esculentuns.
or HOTTEN (Testudinaria elephantipes), a plant of the yam family (Dioscoreacea), of which the rootstock forms a large fleshy mass, curiously truncate, or somewhat resembling an elephant's foot, and covered with a soft, corky, rough and cracked bark, recalling the shell of a tortoise, whence its generic name. From this springs annually a climbing stem, which bears the leaves and flowers, the latter being small and yellow. The starchy rootstocic is used as food by the Hottentots. The plant is not in frequent in hothouses. The American plants lcnown as elephant's-foot belong to the genus Elephantopus of the Asteracece. The genus comprises 16 .species, natives of tropical or warm regions. Four are found in the United States, mostly to the south of Delaware. The best known is the Carolina elephant's-foot (E. carolinimtus). This is an erect hairy herb, with thin oval leaves and bracted heads of blue or purple flowers in branching corymbs. It grows as far north as southern New Jersey and west to Kansas, and is abundant in all the region to the ninth. Another species is known in the Southern States as tobacco-weed and devil's grandmother.