210 UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY— TERTIARY FLORA. 



unfolded buds or the ovaries of species of this genus. In the American 

 specimen, these ovaries appear like small involucres of ripe seeds, the tegu- 

 men being a thin, shelly envelope, and the inner substance transformed into 

 coal, like a small nutlet, either entire or cut lengthwise in tlie middle, as seen 

 in the enlarged fig. c. All the living species of this genus which I had oppor- 

 tunity to examine for comparison have the carpels linear and comparatively 

 much longer. 



Habitat. — Black Buttes, Wyoming, in the shale of the burned bed ; 

 very rare. 



peoteinej:. 



This family is represented at our time by a very large number of species, 

 mostly distributed in the southern hemisphere, in the extratropical zones of 

 Austral Africa, New Holland, and New Zealand. A few species inhabit the 

 subtropical and tropical regions of the American continent. 



The European paleontologists formerly referred to genera of this fahiily 

 many species which, most of them, have since been recognized as related to 

 plants of countries whose flora and general natural history are analogous to 

 those of the present time in the northern hemisphere. Thus, for example, 

 the greatest number of species formerly referred to Banksia are now placed 

 in the genus Myrica, and some of the most eminent botanists of our time, 

 Bentham among others, assert that unt'l now we have had no positive evi- 

 dence of the presence of the Troteece in the fossil floras. It has been seen 

 already that the leaves referred to Proteecc, from specimens of the Cretaceous 

 Proleoides, are of uncertain reference, and the presence in the American 

 Tertiary of a single leaf, possibly referable to this family, seems to confirm 

 the now more generally prevailing opinion that the analogy of leaves whose 

 characters are not perfectly or sufficiently definite should be looked for in 

 floras of the countries where the essential analogous vegetable and animal 

 types are more generally found. Schimper observes, with reason, that neither 

 the Cretaceous nor the Tertiary faunas of Europe have any analogy with those 

 of Australia, and that therefore the plants should follow, and have probably 

 followed, a distribution in harmony with that of the animals. 



