BY HENRY DEANE. 4G9 



he says, points to the warmer parts of North America. It will 

 be necessary to see whether these leaves are not equally referable 

 to existing species of Australian plants. Bombax is said to 

 point to tropical America; the fact was not known, or it was 

 overlooked, that the genus is represented at the present day in 

 Northern Australia. 



Knightia and Coprosma are said to point to Oceania. In 

 passing, it is to lie remarked that the leaf named Knightia is a 

 very poor fragment. Knightia is one of two genera of Proteacece 

 indigenous to New Zealand, the other being Persoonia. Each con- 

 tains one species only in New Zealand, Knightia being peculiar to 

 it. Persoonia has many Australian representatives. The example 

 is not a happy one. If the ancestors of Knightia and Persoonia 

 have not been introduced fortuitously from Australia by wind or 

 ocean currents, or by birds, which is not altogether impossible, it 

 is probable that these Proteacece may have spread through the 

 more or less fleeting Antarctic connections, proof of the existence 

 of which is continually accumulating. Coprosma is a genus well 

 represented in Eastern Australia at the present day; ten species 

 are known to exist in that region. 



It is to be supposed that Ettingshausen has brought his 

 strongest examples forward, but it will be seen from the above 

 how essentially weak the arguments adduced are; and if it can 

 be shown, as I believe it will be, that the so-called leaves of 

 Myrica, Betula, Alnus, Salix, Castanopsis and Magnolia do not 

 necessarily belong to those genera, the whole fabrication created 

 by Ettingshausen, at least as regards Australia, falls to the 

 ground, and the reference by Heer, Ettingshausen and others of 

 European fossil plants to Australian genera becomes also liable 

 to doubt. 



In a future paper I propose to deal with these special cases 

 and some others suggested by the perusal of the "Contributions 

 to the Tertiary Flora of Australia." 



I wish to add a few words with reference to the reputed exist- 

 ence of Eucalyptus and other types, now peculiar to the Austra- 

 lian region, in beds of Tertiary Age in England and Europe. 



