RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 397 



Tokyo, vol. xxv, No. 303). The species is based on good leaf 

 impressions, and though in some parts of the world fossil 

 palms are common, these are of interest as they represent a 

 region from which very little plant material is known, and 

 which appears to correspond to the Laramie in America. 

 The specimens from Hokkaido indicate a warmer climate than 

 at present. American Tertiary plants were described by Dr. 

 E. W. Berry (" Fossil Plants from the Late Tertiary of Okla- 

 homa," Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. liv, pp. 627-36). These 

 Dicotyledonous leaf impressions were in some respects similar 

 to the Florissant flora, but Berry inclined to place them in 

 the Upper Miocene. 



From Berry also we had an interesting general account of 

 " The Jurassic Lagoons of Solenhofen " (Sci. Monthly, October), 

 in which was pictured both the plant and animal life. As 

 regards the former, Berry explained its relative scarcity in 

 comparison with the innumerable animals by " the macera- 

 ting action of the water, the non-deciduous character of the 

 foliage of Jurassic plants, the activity of bacteria in the warm 

 sea water, and most of all the situation of the deposits, away 

 from any estuary with its stream-borne load of land-derived 

 debris." 



Records from the Antipodes were represented by A. B. 

 Walkom's continued publications on the Mesozoic floras of 

 Queensland. In " The Flora of the Maryborough (Marine) 

 Series " (Queensland Geol. Surv., publ. No. 262) a number of 

 species, some of them new, were described, and were of special 

 interest as the only record available of the land vegetation of 

 the time, although found in a marine deposit. The species 

 range from Equisetites to Conifers, the greater part being 

 Gymnosperms. 



The same author gave a more general account of the Meso- 

 zoic floras of his country, accompanied by sketch maps of 

 ancient land distribution, in " The Geology of the Lower 

 Mesozoic Rocks of Queensland, with special reference to their 

 Distribution and Fossil Flora, and their Correlation with the 

 Lower Mesozoic Rocks of other Parts of Australia " (Proc. 

 Linnean Soc. N.S. Wales, vol. xliii, pt. 1). Coals are distri- 

 buted through some of the horizons, which, of course, lend 

 the plant records additional interest. Printed as it is on 

 thin paper and in small octavo size, it is externally inconspicuous 

 in the year's output : had it been produced on thick paper and 

 in handsome quarto, as has been the fashion in other quarters, 

 this memoir would then have been obviously what it is actually, 

 namely, the most significant publication of the year's general 

 Paleobotany. 



Two memoirs on the detailed anatomical features of 



