FOSSIL PLANTS. 61 



With regard to Tertiary and Post-tertiary fossil plants 

 we often find that the various communications serve chiefly 

 to add new species to the long list of fossil Angiosperms, or 

 record fresh localities for old species. Such contributions 

 may be of considerable interest from the point of view of 

 plant distribution. A case in point is afforded by the con- 

 clusions arrived at by Weberbauer 1 that the genus Brasenia, 

 now widely distributed in extra-European regions, was 

 formerly a native of Europe. Weberbauer, acting on a 

 suggestion made by Wittmack, carefully examined species 

 of the two genera, Holopleura and Cratopleura, from the 

 lignitic deposits of Wetteren and Biarritz, and compared 

 them with seeds of Brasenia. This comparison led him to 

 abolish the above generic names of Caspary and Weber for 

 the recent genus Brasenia. The Marquis of Saporta 2 records 

 a Tertiary species of the genus Nelumbmm from the 

 Aquitanian beds of Manosque, and speaks of the fossil form 

 N. protospeciosum Sap., as closely resembling the Asiatic 

 species N. speciosum Wild. Some interesting remarks are 

 added on the general character of the Aquitanian vegetation 

 in the Manosque district. 



From Italy several fossil Muscineas have been recorded 

 by Brizi from a tufaceous deposit in the valley of the 

 Tiber. 3 Another writer describes a new fossil Palm 4 from 

 the Tongrien of Nuceto ; the plant is named Calamopsis 

 Brunt Peola, and is represented in the type specimen by a 

 portion of a pinnate leaf with the venation clearly marked ; 

 it is compared to the living genus Zalacca, and appears to 

 be the first example of Heer's genus Calamopsis recorded 

 from Italy. 



LITERATURE. 



BOWER, F. O. On the Structure of the Axis of Lepidostrobits 

 Brownii, Schpr. Annals Botany, vol. vii., 1893, p. 329. 



1 Ber. deutsch. bot. Ges., Jahrg. ii., Heft 6, 1893, p. 366. 



2 Com.pt. Rend., vol. cxvii., 1893, p. 607. 



3 Bull. Soc. Bot. Ital, No. 7, 1893, p. 369. 

 * Malpighia, 1893, p. 289. 



