78 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



and about 50 species of ferus ouly. Let us now 

 push ou in our journey upwards in time and place, 

 noticing briefly one or two formations whose flora, 

 in the known parts of the world, is but scanty, or 

 which we may conveniently group under some other 

 head, and selecting those only whose flora is con- 

 spicuous and well marked. J udging from the few 

 and imperfectly preserved representatives known to 



■ Fig. 49. Calamites (restored) ; b, portion of stem ; c, d, e, 

 Isaves ; /, catkin; g, radical end of stem. 



the geologist, the flora of the Permian and Triassic 

 periods was a meagre one, and need not detain us. 

 Our knowledge, however, of the subsequent Oolitic 

 period enables us to speak with more assurance of 

 the nature and afiinities of the vegetable forms then 

 present, and the amount of progress made in 

 specialization of parts. The bituminous shale, or 

 coal of Ivimmeridge, the lignite and coal of the 



Scarborough coast, of Brora in Sutherlandshire, of 

 A'"irginia in America, the coal of Hiadostan and the 

 Indian archipelago, belong, without doubt, to this 

 period, and owe their origin to remains of plants 

 which, to our eyes, are tropical or subtropical in 

 appearance, and are known by names that to many 

 of us are very unfamiliar. In order that we may 

 form a rough estimate of the grandeur, abundance, 

 and variety of the plant-forms of this 

 age, I will]]enumerate a few of them, 

 requesting you to note, en passant, the 

 fact that, with all their strangeness of 

 form, the flora of this period has an 

 increased familiar look about it. 

 Amongst coniferaj, our old acquaint- 

 ance araucarites has, as companions, 

 cupressinites, pinites, taxites, abie- 

 tites, and thujites. These are the then 

 highest exogens. Amongst endogens, 

 cycads are still present as cycadites, 

 zamites, palseozamia, zamiostrobus, 

 and tree ferns. We have others lower 

 in station, and very chara-like in ap- 

 pearance ; chara, naiadites, and sphae- 

 rococcites and lily-like plants, and our 

 former friends equisetites, lycopodites, 

 and halymenites. It is, however, in 

 the tertiaries that we see we are draw- 

 ing home to the present flora — by the 

 familiar faces with which we become 

 surrounded in these rocks. Though 

 the tertiary landscape has about it an 

 increased look of familiarity, yet the 

 flora is much less English and Euro- 

 pean generally than subtropical. The 

 analogues of the then living plants 

 must now be sought for on the Euro- 

 pean shores of the Mediterranean, the 

 warm, temperate parts of Asia, Africa, 

 Australia, and America — camphor- 

 trees, sarsaparillas, fan palms, flabel- 

 larias, palms, tulip-trees, Banksias, 

 magnolias, vines, fig-trees, laurels, and 

 evergreen oaks ; and in the upper 

 beds a species of plane-tree, maple, 

 walnut, juniper, willow, cypress, yew, 

 pine, bean, pea, chara, mosses, lyco- 

 podiums, ferns, horse-tails, mare's- 

 tails, fruits, and flowers ; and I may 

 add lichens and fungi. In a flora num- 

 bering thousands of species, there 

 eight hundred flowering plants, three 

 hundred and upwards of which were evergreens. 

 This would now seem a strange flora for Europe. The 

 lignite beds of Bovey Tracey, in Devonshire, have 

 yielded about fifty species. The English fossils, how- 

 ever, are common to the beds of the continent, 

 where they are much more abundant, and specifically 

 more numerous. At this point I wish to remark 



branclies witli 



were 



about 



