166 BERRY— LOWER EOCENE FLORA OF [April 23, 



The order Ranales appears to me to be a highly unnatural 

 assemblage, which doubtless explains the prolonged discussion and 

 wide range of opinion regarding its true status. As treated in Eng- 

 ler and Prantl it includes 16 families with over 4,000 existing spe- 

 cies. While a distinct calyx and corolla are the prevailing habit 

 this is combined with such primitive features as apocarpy and hypog- 

 yny, and by a well marked tendency to indefinite repitition and spiral 

 arrangement of the floral members. I have removed the Lauraceae 

 which contain ^4 of the existing species to a place in the more evolved 

 order Thymeleales. 



The Ranales as a whole show no close filiation with previous 

 alliances. They include forms that are more nearly Monocotyledons 

 than Dicotyledons (Nymphaeacese) and numerous botanists (c. g. 

 Wieland, Arber, Hallier) see in them the logical zenith of evolution 

 of the Mesozoic Cycadophytes and thus as representing the ancestral 

 stock from which the Angiosperms were descended — apparently a 

 most remarkable feat, except on paper, when any except floral 

 features are taken into account.-^ 



Considering as I do that the Ranalian alliance is a plexus con- 

 taining unrelated elements, any extended consideration of theSr 

 geologic history would be fruitless. Certain forms are well repre- 

 sented among the oldest known display of Angiosperms in the 

 Middle Cretaceous. Only two Ranalian families are represented in 

 the Wilcox flora and these two are both natural groups closely re- 

 lated and typically Ranalian. I refer to the families Magnoliacese 

 and Anonacese. 



The family Magnoliacese comprises about 70 existing species seg- 

 regated into nine or ten genera, by far the largest of which is the 

 genus Magnolia with about 21 species of eastern and southern Asia 

 southern Mexico and the eastern United States. The family is 

 mainly tropical and the bulk of the existing forms occur in south- 

 eastern Asia, the magnolias of that region being largely forms of 

 tropical uplands. 



There are numerous apparent anomalies in the distribution of the 

 recent forms, thus none are native in Europe, although Magnolia per- 



25 For discussion of this theory see recent papers by Wieland, Arber and 

 Parkin, and Hallier. 



