76 EDWARD W, BERRY 



The actual details of the past history of the beeches were of 

 course infinitely more complicated than I have sketched them. 

 All of the new species did not originate successively in one area 

 and radiate from it regularly in all directions. Each continental 

 area must have been a local center of evolution and radiation 

 after the stock had once reached it, and doubtless there were in- 

 terchanges between one and another parts in progress during the 

 whole of the long ages of the Tertiary period. Nevertheless the 

 foregoing sketch shorn of its unknown and confusing complexi- 

 ties emphasizes the major features of beech evolution and 

 migration. 



It remains for me to consider the recorded occurrences of 

 beeches during past time somewhat more fully than I have done 

 in the preceding paragraphs. The Cretaceous species have al- 

 ready been enumerated in the paragraphs discussing the proba- 

 bility of Asia having been the original home of Fagus and Noiho- 

 fagus. The Eocene species are nine or ten in number and include 

 records from Europe, Greenland, Alaska and the western United 

 States. The Oligocene species number about fourteen and the 

 records include eastern and southwestern Asia, probably Austral- 

 ia, all the countries of Europe where plants of this age are repre- 

 sented, eastern North America, Graham Land, Chile and Terra 

 del Fuego. The Miocene species number about thirty. Fagus 

 at this time was practically cosmopolitan, being represented 

 throughout Europe and North America, particularly in the west 

 in the Rocky mountain province (Colorado) and along the Pacific 

 coast (California) where it has now long been extinct. It was 

 present in Iceland and Spitzbergen, in Australia, and at several 

 points in eastern Asia. The Pliocene species number over a score 

 and include several that fqreshadow forms that are present in 

 our recent floras. The records include Japan and most Pliocene 

 plant localities in Europe. In the United States where Pliocene 

 deposits other than those of strictly marine origin (and conse- 

 quently lacking fossil plants) are very rare, an extinct species of 

 Fagus is found in Alabama along the Gulf coast of that period. 



Beech forests seem to have flourished in undiminished vigor 

 over most of the northern hemisphere up to the ad\'ent of the 



