6 7 6 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



As the botanical world well knows, the American school, headed by 

 Jeffrey and his students, tends to maintain the rather startling view that 

 the Abietineae preceded the Araucarineae in evolution. As the details given 

 in Prof. Seward's text-book clearly demonstrate, the facts both of geological 

 distribution in time and the structural details of the woods of the different 

 epochs demonstrate the remoteness of the possibility of such a view receiving 

 enduring support. 



Those who deal with recent plants can no longer afford to dogmatise or 

 generalise on plant distribution or family history, and at the same time to 

 ignore the results of Paleobotany. The disastrous effects of such an omis- 

 sion to dig their foundations in the rocks of the past has been very evident 

 in certain recent and popularly accepted theories of distribution, which 

 display a lamentable ignorance of the true histories of plant groups, and 

 would never have received even the temporary recognition which they have 

 had, had the botanical public been educated adequately in the fundamentals 

 of plant history. Prof. Seward's book will do much to further such an 

 education. 



