596 JUST 



and Bentall (1944) marks the beginning of organized research in this group 

 of microfossils, pioneered in Europe by Potonie, Raistrick, and Zerndt a 

 decade before. The finest practical application of the use of fossil spores was 

 made by Kosanke (1950) in his study of IlUnois coal beds as correlated by 

 spores. Fossil pollen studies are also increasing in number and content, but 

 as yet no generally acceptable synopsis has appeared. This fairly new field of 

 morphological, systematic, ecological, and stratigraphic research is bound to 

 develop immensely in the next decade or so. Increased knowledge of this 

 kind will affect greatly our ideas of fossil floras, their composition, and ecology, 

 as well as stratigraphic sequence. Unless fossil spores and pollen are found 

 in situ, they cannot be referred to the biological species to which they belong 

 and must temporarily be placed in artificial categories. If found in place, 

 they can be transferred to the plant to which they really belong, as were the 

 microspores and megaspores, with their own names to the new species Sela- 

 ginellites crassicinctus by Hoskins and Abbott (1956). 



In addition to the development of new techniques used in the study of fossil 

 plants, other significant tools have been made available to paleobotanists. 

 For the first time specific rules and recommendations pertaining to fossil 

 plants are included in the new International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, 

 and others will no doubt be proposed before the next International Botanical 

 Congress in Montreal in 1959. Various fundamental reference works such as 

 Andrews' Index of Generic Names of Fossil Plants, 1820-1950, Knowlton's 

 Catalogue of Mesozoic and Cenozoic Plants of North America and LaMotte's 

 Supplement to it, LaMotte's Catalogue of the Cenozoic Plants of North 

 America through 1950, Fossilium Catalogus, Plantae by Jongmans and col- 

 laborators, Hirmer's and Magdefrau's annual reviews in Fortschritte der 

 Botanik, Selling's Report on European Paleobotany, Reports of the Com- 

 mittee of British Paleobotanists, Sahni's reports on Paleobotany in India, 

 Pollen and Spore Circular, and the Paleobotanical Reports published since 

 1929 under the auspices of the National Research Council have brought con- 

 siderable organization and stability to the field. 



As the study of evolution has in recent years taken on a wholly new ap- 

 proach and outlook, paleobotanical data provide many suitable examples of 

 evolutionary rates, migrations, and distribution patterns as well as of the 

 origins of major and minor categories (Stebbins, 1950). Certainly the old 

 phylogenetic trees can now be cut down, as they no longer express correctly 

 our ideas of known or suspected relationships. This wholesale eradication of 

 phylogenetic trees automatically disposes of many old controversies and 

 thereby opens the door for new facts and interpretations. 



Probably no discovery of a fossil plant ever received as much public atten- 

 tion as that of the genus Metasequoia, the so-called dawn redwood. It is the 

 last and perhaps best-known example of genera with a relic distribution in 

 eastern Asia to be described. Chaney's Revision of Fossil Sequoia and Taxo- 



