70 EDWARD W. BERRY 



Terra del Fuego. Some of these were found to only attain the 

 stature of shrubs, many of them were evergreen and all had 

 tiny leaves. They differ from the northern beeches in their 

 partial lack of deciduous habits, their smaller leaves and in their 

 flowers being solitary or grouped in clusters of three. For a 

 long time these southern forms were referred to the genus Fagus, 

 which was divided into two sections — a section Eufagus for the 

 well known species of the north temperate zone and a section 

 Nothofagus for their antipodean congeners. The latter have 

 since been raised to generic rank, quite rightly it seems to me, 

 although their close relationships and community of origin with 

 the true beeches is clearly demonstrable. The curiously segre- 

 gated ranges of these existing forms is shown on the accompanying 

 sketch map (fig. 1). 



Granting that these two lines are offshoots of a common stock 

 the question of its original home at once suggests itself, along 

 ■with the query as to whether in some past time members of the 

 two genera flourished side by side either in the north or the south 

 temperate zone. These questions can only be answered by an 

 appeal to the fossil record, a book with unfortunately many 

 missing chapters, especially those relating to the great land mass 

 of Asia. 



The oldest known fossil forms are a species (Fagus prisca 

 Ettingshausen) from the early Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) 

 of Saxony and three species in the Dakota sandstone of the 

 western United States of almost exactly the same age as the 

 Saxon species. Their essentially contemporaneous appearance 

 in Europe and America argues that they were immigrants into 

 both regions from some third area. Only two alternatives are 

 probable. Either their ancestors came from the Arctic region 

 and spread southward simultaneously into Europe and .America 

 or else they originated in Asia and spread westward into Europe 

 and eastward into America across the land bridge which closed 

 Behring Sea at about this time. If the Arctic was the original 

 home of the beech its remains should occur in either the Ceno- 

 manian or later Cretaceous floras of Greenland where it has not 

 been found although it is present in that region in the Tertiary. 



