Permineralized fruits from the Late Paleocene Almont flora of North Dakota previously considered to be multiloculate fruits bearing single seeds per locule with possible malvalean affinities are reinterpreted as multiseeded follicles. Fruits are 1.3 cm long x 1.5 cm wide x 0.5 cm high, bilaterally symmetric, and contain tightly packed seeds that give the internal organization of the fruit a honeycomb-like appearance in section. Seeds have a prominent palisade outer integumentary layer that typically splits from the inner integument. This outer palisade layer was previously interpreted as septa delimiting multiple locules. These fruits bear striking similarity in structure, appearance and details of seed shape, attachment and integumentary features to ranunculoid follicles such as those found in Actaea, the baneberry (8 species, northern temperate Asia, Europe and North America). As previously noted, the Almont fruits are also similar to the single specimen known as Carpolithes bowerbanki from the London Clay, underscoring shared floristic elements across the Atlantic during the Paleocene-Eocene transition. This is supported by both the distribution of Carpolithes bowerbanki-like follicles and the present distribution ofActaea.

Key words: Actaea, Almont, Carpolithes bowerbanki, fossil fruits, North Dakota, Paleocene