Reflections on Primitive Vegetation. 5 



vegetables of our epoch that we must look for species analo- 

 gous to them. 



Thus, the Catamites, which are from four to five metres in 

 height, and from one to two decimetres in diameter, bear an 

 almost exact resemblance, in every point of their organiza- 

 tion, to the Equiseta, known commonly by the name of horse- 

 tails, which grow so abundantly in the marshy places in our 

 climates, and whose stems, hardly thicker than a finger, sel- 

 dom exceed a metre in height. The Catamites, therefore, 

 must have been arborescent JEquiseta, a form under which 

 these plants have totally disappeared from the globe. 



The Lepidodendrons, the numerous species of which must 

 have formed an essential part of the forests of that remote 

 epoch, and which have probably contributed more than all 

 other vegetables, to the formation of coal, differ very litle from 

 our Lycopodia. We recognise in their stems the same essen- 

 tial structure, the same mode of ramification, and, finally, we 

 see leaves and fruit, similar to those of these plants, inserted 

 upon their branches. But, whilst the Lycopodia of the pre- 

 sent day are small plants, frequently creeping, and resembling 

 large mosses, rarely attaining a metre in height, and covered 

 with very small leaves, the Lepidodendrons, retaining the same 

 form and appearance, rose to the height of twenty or thirty 

 metres, with a base of a metre and a half in diameter, and bore 

 leaves, which sometimes reached to half a metre in length ; 

 they must, consequently, have been arborescent Lycopodia, 

 as high as the largest of our fir-trees, whose place they occu- 

 pied in this primitive world, forming, like them, immense fo- 

 rests, under the shade of which the numerous ferns of that 

 period were developed. 



How different must have been this mighty vegetation from 

 that which now clothes the surface of the earth with its varied 

 tints ! Size, strength, and rapidity of growth were its essen- 

 tial characteristics; the smallest plants of our epoch were then 

 represented by gigantic forms ; but what simplicity of organi- 

 zation, and what uniformity do they display, in the midst of 

 all this developement of vegetative power ! 



In the present age, even in those spots where man has 

 caused no change in what nature has created, the eye delights 

 to repose in succession upon trees, which are at once distin- 

 guished by the diversity of their form, colour, and foliage, and 

 which frequently display flowers and fruits of the most oppo- 

 site colors. This variation in aspect is still more marked if our 

 glance descend to the different shrubs and plants which skirt 

 our forests or form our fields, with flowers of all the hues of the 

 rainbow. In short it results from this diversity of structure^ 



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