232 Professor Williamson on Palceozoic Vegetation. [Feb. 16, 



ancestors of these ancient Dadoxylons, and the Cycadean plants that 

 grew by their side, along with Ferns, Lepidodendra, Calamites, and 

 other Palaeozoic forms of vegetation ? The scanty fragments obtained 

 from the Silurian rocks give us no trustworthy answer to this ques- 

 tion — scarcely an ignis fatuus glimmers before our eyes. 



It is further obvious that the numerous plants of uncertain affinities, 

 some of which have formed the special subjects of this lecture, must 

 have played an important part in the Ontogeny of the Palaeozoic flora. 

 Though as I have shown, we already know much of the internal 

 organisation of these plants, we cannot at present assign to them their 

 true botanical positions. How much less can we assign that position 

 to plants of which we only know obscure external forms, which rarely 

 can be implicitly relied upon, apart from organisation. Yet a philo- 

 sophic constructor of a genealogical tree of the vegetable kingdom 

 cannot ignore all these objects. The time has not yet arrived for the 

 appointment of a botanical King-at-arms and constructor of pedigrees. 



Whilst so many problems connected with the Palaeozoic flora 

 remain unsolved, one fact may be regarded as established indisputably. 

 The forest scenery of the Carboniferous and Devonian ages must have 

 been monotonous and gloomy. The woodland expanse may have dis- 

 played many varied and graceful forms. The uplifted stems and 

 feathery foliage of the Calamitean plants may have been projected 

 against the rounded outlines and drooping branches of the giant 

 Lepidodendra. The lowland forests may have been bounded by groups 

 of pine-like Dadoxylons flourishing upon the higher and drier hills ; 

 but hill and dale would equally lack the gorgeous colouring supplied 

 by the floral world. Viewed from a distance, the scene may have 

 resembled a tropical landscape of the present time, seen under similar 

 conditions. Though the traveller, penetrating the shady recesses of 

 a tropical forest, occasionally comes upon some small oasis gay with 

 flowers, such displays are too few and too isolated to relieve the 

 monotonous green of the outspread landscape. The tropics have no 

 lines of fragrant hawthorns, whose masses of snowy blossom give light 

 and beauty to the scene. Summer there weaves no carpet clothing 

 meadow and pasture with yellow buttercups and " wee crimson tipped" 

 flowers. Autumn makes no upland slopes reflect back the golden hues 

 of the furze, shining in richest yet most harmonious contrast with the 

 heather's purple bloom. Such widespread glories, absent from the 

 equatorial zone, now belong to our own more favoured climes. In 

 Palaeozoic times, they were lacking from every portion of the primaeval 

 world. 



[W. C. W.] 



